Chaos Incarnate
by sakurademonalchemist
Summary: We all know Ranma Saotome isn't the most responsible of people. But when he gives a box full of Jusenkyo Curses to the Number One, Hyperactive ninja of all time, he has no idea that he'll be throwing destiny and fate completely out of whack! Now Sasuke is a half girl, Naruto has begun his own reign of terror, and Ranma is laughing about it all! Will Konoha ever be the same?
1. Chapter 1

Naruto was about to head to the Academy when he ran into the guy, almost literally. He wore a Chinese outfit, and had all the markings of a natural fighter. He also looked bored as hell at the moment.

"Hey kid, where you off to in such a hurry?" he asked.

Naruto hooked a thumb behind him, and the guy's sight followed to find nearly ten ANBU, twenty chunin and a lone jounin trying to catch him after a recent prank.

By the rules the Hokage had laid down years ago after dealing with his mother, Kushina, if Naruto reached the relative safety of his classroom then he was home free and the shinobi couldn't get back at him.

He got caught, well, he needed to work on his escape again.

Unfortunately for those chasing him, Naruto had long since worked out a large series of short cuts to the Academy since it was one of the few places the mobs avoided. Which meant they had to work for their capture.

Once explained of that while running towards said building, the man laughed hard.

"I like you brat! Tell ya what, how about I give you the best damn tool to prank people with ever invented?"

"Really?"

"Hell yeah! I'm bored out of my damn mind in this ninja village! Just be careful who you splash with this stuff, okay?"

The man handed over a large box full of powders. From what Naruto could read, the label said something about 'Powdered Curse Forms'.

"Remember, only one packet at a time. The effects are instant. If you need to find me I'll be around that Forest of Death, also known as Area 44."

"Thanks mister!"

"No problem kid. Word of advice? Try not to get hit with one of these when wet."

Naruto's first victim was Sasuke Uchiha. Ever since last year when his brother killed off his clan, the boy had become a royal pain in the ass. After reading the instructions carefully, Naruto poured the first packet he pulled out without looking at the label into a water balloon then filled it up.

He had learned early on Sasuke never took water balloons seriously, and since it was so hot he wouldn't think to dodge. A few times the boy actually thanked him for cooling him off.

Naruto grinned. Somehow he had a feeling this would amuse him for years.

He walked up behind Sasuke and slammed the balloon on the boy.

"Dobe..." he growled, not meaning it at all.

It wasn't until Iruka did a double take on the way to the classroom that Sasuke realized something was very, very wrong.

"While I approve the practice, you should take off the henge before class. The girls might get the wrong idea and you might end up with more fan boys."

"Henge? What henge?" he asked.

Iruka, after over a year of dealing with Naruto, handed him a mirror. It took Sasuke a good minute to realize what was wrong. He reached for his bits, and his eyes widened comically.

"I am going to kill him slowly! DOBE GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE AND UNDO WHATEVER YOU DID TO ME!"

Naruto was on the roof, and suddenly so was the stranger.

"Oh that is _priceless!_ You hit the Uchiha brat with the powdered form of the Spring of Drowned Girl?" he cackled.

"The what?"

"Those powders I gave you? They're from my second home. Get them in water and douse someone with it, and they get a curse that can only be undone with hot water...until they get hit by cold again. There is like a hundred packets in that box I gave you, and one of them is the Spring of Drowned Girl."

"So the teme is going to be stuck as a girl?" said Naruto, a foxy grin growing on his face.

"Until he gets hit with hot water," said the man grinning evilly.

Naruto couldn't take any more, and about died laughing. The man was snickering too.

Once he calmed down enough, he finally asked "What's your name mister?"

"Me? I'm Ranma Saotome, of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. I learned how to kick ass before chakra became popular."

"SO COOL! Teach me, please!"

"Maybe in a couple of years kid. First you have to learn the basics. How about we meet during your days off?"

"You got a deal mister!"

"DOBE! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE AND UNDO THIS!"

"Lesson one: escaping from pranking victims after you've given them a curse that is humiliating. Begin!" cackled Ranma.

Naruto was far ahead of him on that front, running like hell to avoid the fireballs Sasuke was shooting at him. He knew the idiot could recover inhumanly fast, which meant the boy was target practice unless otherwise stated.

Unfortunately for the blond, the teachers weren't about to discourage that sort of thinking, and with the amount of paperwork he generated on a bad week, the Hokage was easily able to overlook the fact that one of Naruto's peers would like nothing better than to fry him with a half powered fire jutsu. The sad fact was that Sasuke did less damage than the mobs. If _they_ hadn't killed the kid yet, then the last Uchiha sure as hell wasn't going to be able to.

Besides, Naruto did deserve that reaction with the pranks he played.

* * *

By the time Sasuke caught Naruto, after exhausting nearly all his chakra, Naruto had already hit Ichiraku's for some hot water. It was cool enough by now that Sasuke could be hit with it and not get scalded.

"Dobe...what the hell did you do to me?" asked Sasuke, eyebrow twitching.

"Um...I actually have no idea. The guy who gave me the powders said that it was something that can only be reversed by hot water. Oh, and it comes back with cold," Naruto admitted. He was not about to reveal he had cursed Sasuke unless he absolutely _had_ to. He didn't have a death wish after all.

"Hand over the water, and no one gets hurt," growled Sasuke. Naruto handed him the container. Once he poured it over his head, he could feel the difference. His bits were back.

"If you tell anyone, particularly that idiot Kiba, you are a dead man. Clear?"

"Crystal," said Naruto.

Sasuke quickly learned Naruto had not been joking about the fact that it came back with cold water after he went home to cool off in the pond built near the Uchiha complex.

Eyebrows twitching, he contemplated how he was going to get Naruto back for this. Eventually he settled on the tried, but true method.

He would ask the man at Ichiraku's to help him trick Naruto into eating ramen only to learn it wasn't. Old Teuchi was a firm believer in revenge pranks, even if it meant pulling one on his best customer.

* * *

Hiruzen Sarutobi was many things, but an idiot was not one of them. The second he saw the name on the lease, he swore so impressively that the ANBU guarding him were taking notes.

Saotome Ranma, an incarnation of chaos and the worst enemy of anyone who had to deal with him, was living in Konoha. To make matters worse, he seemed to have taken a shine to Naruto, the most annoying prankster since his mother was alive.

Judging by the reports he got from the ANBU following the boy, he had already hit the last Uchiha. Though even they had no idea what Naruto had done to him to earn that many fireballs shot at him.

So Sarutobi did the one sane thing. He called Ranma in and prepared to deliver his ultimatum. He could handle this man...hopefully. He did after all have several questionably sane shinobi on payroll, like Anko Mitarashi or Might Gai.

"Yo."

He would not kill Ranma on sight, like half the countries he visited. At least not unless the boy proved to be a bigger menace than Jiraiya.

"Saotome Ranma. Do you know why I have called you here?"

"Not particularly. I have yet to actually _do_ anything. And this is my first time in the Land of Fire."

"I know. However I have a proposal for you."

"I'm listening, but if I hear anything about marriage I'm gone."

Ranma was notorious for many things. But chief among them was the headache and paperwork that followed him...along with an odd tendency to acquire fiancée that he didn't want or need.

"You and I both know your reputation. Fortunately for you, I am used to deal with people who insist on adding to my load of paperwork. Therefor I would like to offer an ultimatum to you."

"Let's hear it Grandpa," said Ranma flippantly.

"If you sense at any time that something chaotic is about to happen around you, visit another village. Preferably Iwa if you can manage it."

Ranma blinked.

"You don't mind me living here?"

"We're a shinobi village for Kami's sake. If we couldn't handle your unique brand of insanity we would quit the game. However I would prefer to keep the paperwork from dealing with you to a minimum if possible. So, how would you like to join the shinobi forces long enough to make someone else's life miserable?"

"Don't send me on any seduction or assassination missions. I can live with guarding people and stealing."

"Done. So do we have a deal?"

"Hell yes! You're the only leader who's at least given me a chance!" said Ranma.

"Coincidentally...do you have any idea why the Uchiha boy was chasing Naruto earlier?"

"Duck butt chasing the blond kid? You sure you want to know?"

"Humor me."

"I gave blondie a small box full of the Jusenkyo Powders. He hit duck butt with the one from the Spring of Drowned Girl apparently," said Ranma with straight face.

"He what? ARE YOU INSANE?! Why in the name of Kami would you hand something like that to _Naruto_ of all people?!" said the Hokage in horror.

"For shits and giggles, obviously. You may not believe this, but it can get pretty damn boring in a ninja village unless you liven things up a bit."

The Hokage started banging his head against the desk. This was going to be hell on earth for a few years, he could just tell.

* * *

_Five years after Ranma first entered Konoha and ran into Naruto..._

"GET BACK HERE AND TAKE YOUR BEATING LIKE A MAN!"

"You mean what you aren't anymore?" yelled the other cackling evilly.

"_ONE OF THESE DAYS I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE FOR THAT YOU ASSHOLE!"_ shouted the first.

The second one, which quickly revealed to be Naruto, was howling. Sasuke had never fully forgiven him when, after running into an amused Ranma, he learned the full scope of what Naruto had done to him as a prank. Finding out he was stuck as a half-man, half-pseudo female had not been pleasant.

Learning that Naruto could curse anyone with a simple water balloon, however, opened an entire avenue of ways to get his revenge on his brother.

Why kill him when you can completely ruin him as a shinobi and a man? Sasuke was still debating on whether to go with the cute bunny or the girl form he was now stuck with.

Ranma, however, was both a blessing and a curse. He was the only one to show Sasuke the tricks to dealing with his cursed form...and the entire reason why Sasuke was now stuck turning into a girl every time he went swimming.

This lead to Sasuke becoming very, very good at Henge so he could get swim suits that actually fit. And to earning a frequent customer card at the local hot springs.

Much to his horror, Sasuke also learned he was an early bloomer, which lead to some rather awkward situations outside class.

At least Iruka knew what his girl form looked like so he could cover for him...even if Naruto did hit him by accident with his own curse. Sasuke once asked Iruka why he never tried to prank Naruto back for it...and cackled along with the teacher when he heard the reply.

"_Why bother pranking him when all I have to do is tell your fans about the fact he cursed you into looking like a girl who's prettier than any of them? And hit puberty before them?"_

Sure, the embarrassment of his curse would suck if it got out, but the look on Naruto's face when his fan girl horde attacked him in a rage filled mob would be entirely worth it. Even if it _was_ humiliating to get hit on by nearly EVERY boy in his own class barring Naruto.

It still didn't stop Naruto from nearly dying due to lack of oxygen _every fricken time_ he saw it happen. On the plus side, Sasuke was far more stable after the humiliation of turning into a girl every time he was hit by cold water than he would have been had Ranma not showed up.

Every good shinobi of any real power _has_ to have a quirk. It was an unspoken rule to the shinobi sect. If they were completely normal (cough Sakura before Shippuden cough) then they barely ranked cannon fodder. If they were borderline insane, then that meant you had to watch your ass.

Let it be known that Ranma, due to his unique status as a pseudo-shinobi of Konoha, was immediately listed as S-rank in power _before_ he ever displayed his abilities. The fact he kept having to deal with marriage proposals and the fact he could turn into a girl due to an old curse merely meant he was one of the strongest people alive.

When offered the position of Hokage, Ranma laughed so hard he nearly wet himself while making several obscure warding gestures to the amusement of the ANBU present and the disappointment of the old man behind the desk.

Sarutobi still got his revenge for the massive amounts of paperwork caused by Ranma's mere presence though. Ranma learned rather quickly to draw anything that would cause more than ten sheets of paperwork outside the village...or the Hokage would make him file a report detailing everything down to the last attack in triplicate.

Luckily that meant Ranma was automatically except from ever catching Tora, despite the fact several shinobi attempted to trick him into it solely so he could kill the damn cat. Those poor idiots had to pay for the damages Ranma caused _and_ fill out the paperwork for it.

Now, back to the chase.

Naruto cackled, holding his video recorder for dear life. He was documenting the incidents that Sasuke got whenever one of the boys professed their undying love of him. It never got old.

Sadly, Ranma refused to give Sasuke his own box of cursed powder and Naruto had the best damn hiding place Sasuke had ever seen...as evidenced by the fact he had yet to locate the box the blond had.

Today was the day of the graduation exam. Naruto had failed for one reason only.

Ranma had declared the boy unfit to be ninja until he could at least keep up with him in a spar. To put this in terms the sane of mind could understand, Ranma considered a full on Taijutsu battle with Gai (with the highest gate he could open safely) a decent work out.

Needless to say most of the jounin in Konoha would never _dare_ spar with Ranma after word of that got out.

However, today was the day Naruto would actually take the exam. Mostly because in the spirit of actually graduating the boy before he became a complete menace under the gender-confused S-rank disaster maniac's tutelage, Sarutobi showed Naruto the Shadow Clone, which he took to like an Uchiha to a fire jutsu.

And for the first time since he met him, Naruto managed to get Ranma to take him seriously enough not to yawn while fighting. As such, he cleared the boy to take the exam.

Frankly Naruto couldn't wait to make Kiba shut up about him being an idiot. Sasuke had at least toned it down the day Naruto pointed out Itachi would be a hell of a lot easier to kill once cursed to become something as demeaning as a bunny. Or Kami-forbid, turned into a replacement for Tora after they killed the cat.

They had a run-in with the feline. It would pay for the attack on them if they had anything to say about it, mission be damned.

The day he pointed that out, Sasuke paused in his attempts to kill Naruto for the curse to actually think for a moment...and creating an unholy alliance with the blond solely so he could curse his brother and make his life a living hell. He could kill Naruto after that.


	2. Chapter 2

Naruto eagerly awaited his turn. Today was the day. He would become a genin if it killed someone!

(Yeah...he spends way too much time around Ranma. He had turned from a kind, if goofy upright kid to someone who could care less about someone else getting their face clawed off as long as it didn't happen to him.)

Sasuke was right beside him, looking amused. He had an intimate understanding of the genin placement, and knew that should Naruto actually pass he would be placed with the Rookie of the year and smartest girl in the class...which, after he started to 'develop' in his curse form was him. The irony was _not_ lost on him, though Iruka often had to hold back a laugh whenever he heard the kunoichi in charge of the girl's lessons praise Tsuki-chan, even if they had no clue as to who the girl actually was.

The funny thing was that Iruka was all for insuring the fan girls never got the top kunoichi spot even if it meant allowing Sasuke to head to the bathroom five seconds before 'Tsuki' was about to be called up. He was all for helping his students, but he didn't like fan girls.

'Tsuki' had already come and passed...and coincidentally went to the girl's restroom before Sasuke came back. Iruka shared a conspiratorial wink with the boy. They didn't notice Hinata trying not to snicker.

She had seen the entire thing and was among the only people who knew the truth about Tsuki without being told.

"Uchiha, Sasuke!"

The raven haired boy walked in, got a pass, then walked out. He did mouth 'clone' to Naruto though.

Naruto gave him a thumbs up, and then waited for his name.

"Uzumaki, Naruto!"

Naruto walked in with a smirk. Iruka gave him a wink, and said "Three clones. Get to it."

Naruto put his hands into a cross seal.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Five solid clones of Naruto appeared.

"PASS!" said a very happy Iruka.

Naruto was officially someone else's problem now. He knew full well that Naruto would end up with Sasuke and 'Tsuki', though the look on the instructor's face when informed of the curse would be hilarious. Good thing Naruto had gotten into the habit of carrying around cameras thanks to Ranma.

Hello Blackmail.

* * *

Mizuki, the not so bright traitor, actually attempted to trick Naruto while Ranma happened to be sneaking around nearby. Ranma was annoyed enough that he helped Naruto figure out which curse to hit the idiot with and insisted that he help Naruto lock the bastard in curse form once Anko was through with him.

Those two got along famously, since Ranma had no intention of getting into her pants, came up with witty retorts that got her to laugh and use later, and happened to have a vindictive streak that she absolutely loved. The two got along like a house on fire, and it scared the Hokage shitless when they were in the mood to prank people.

Thankfully they usually directed those to Kumo, since Iwa was apparently a pain in the ass, Ranma didn't want to deal with a Civil war and Suna was an ally.

Sadly, this meant the man had the unfortunate bad luck of having a run in with the container for the two tailed demon...which happened to be a cat.

According to Anko, the woman in question found it hilarious that the big bad Ranma Saotome, the S rank menace from overseas, was terrified of her not because she had a demon inside her, but because it was a cat demon. Needless to say after that meeting all she had to do to brighten up her day was remember that incident and start cackling in amusement.

It had the added benefit of getting her fellow container to quit rapping long enough to shoot her scared looks like she had finally cracked under the pressure, but that was merely a side benefit. The fact she generally tended to remember it in his presence did not hurt either.

Eventually Anko revealed to Ranma where Mizuki would be taken once they were through with him, and an evil idea came to mind.

"Really? Konoha sends all their traitors to prison where the guards overlook the fact that certain members get gang-banged?" he said with an evil grin.

"Yup. Why do you need to know?"

"Mizuki tried to trick Naruto into stealing a scroll and defecting. We're trying to come up with a suitable response for such a poorly made up plan against the kid."

"Oooh...tell me more about the revenge plot?"

"What do you know about pressure points in conjunction to curses?" said Ranma evenly.

"Keep talking and I might jump you..." she said honestly.

As Ranma explained about the curse powders he had in his house and the pressure point he happened to know of that would make it damn near impossible to reverse without the right pill, Anko's cackling had become borderline psychotic murderer. Even Orochimaru, her old teacher, would avoid her if he heard that.

"Oh my kami! Count me in! That is simply too evil to pass up!" she said howling.

Ranma slung an arm over her shoulder.

"Anko my dear, there is much I have to teach you about evil, humiliating, revenge pranks. I have in my kit of revenge a powder that could turn he-who-shall-pay into a harmless rabbit that you could feed to his own boss summon."

Anko grinned evilly.

"Keep talking like that and I really _will_ jump you."

"How do you think blondie got duck butt off his ass for giving him the girl form?"

"I always wondered how he dislodged the stick in the Uchiha's ass."

"He told him that if he let the fact he cursed a classmate drop, he would help him turn Itachi into something so humiliating that killing him would be a mercy. Can you imagine the look on his face if they killed Tora and gave him to the Fire Daimyo's wife as a replacement?"

"Oh my kami! That is so evil and original that I love it!"

"Look at that! Naruto managed to get the scroll after all!"

"Of course he did. How much you wanna bet he used that naked illusion he made to deal with the Hokage and the ANBU just ignored him?" said Ranma.

"No bet. When do we collect Mizuki?"

"After the kid does his assignment for the night. I told him to copy as many jutsu he wanted until someone found him. Bet ya 1,000 ryo Iruka is the one to get to him first."

"2,000 it's ANBU or someone else," said Anko promptly.

"To the meeting spot?"

"Sure!"

* * *

"Ranma-nii, I got the balloon ready!" said Naruto.

"Good kid. You remember to double-check the powder before you poured it in?"

"Yup! It's the same one I hit Sasuke with, just like you told me!"

Ranma patted him on the head. Naruto had his shadow clones copying at a mad pace. Anko was eating dango inside the house waiting for the show.

By the time Iruka showed up, he found a bored Ranma, an eager Naruto, and...was that Anko in the shed.

"Okay, I can understand him, but why is she here?"

"Invited her to the show. She wanted first crack at anyone stupid enough to try to trick Naruto when I'm around. By the way Anko, I won the bet."

"Yeah yeah, I'll pay ya the next time I get a mission!"

"Kill that damn Tora and we'll be even! I swear that damn thing has it in for me!"

"Tora has it in for anyone who's ever sported a Leaf headband. You just have the bad luck of having a really weird phobia," she said flatly.

"Anyway, I overheard Mizuki's mission, so being the kind, generous soul I am..." said Ranma, pausing appropriately for the disbelieving and utterly unconvinced snorts from his audience, "decided to help the kid give the idiot a taste of his own medicine. According to Anko, our resident master of the depraved and inhumane practices, Mizuki will be sent to a Konoha-sponsered jail with guards who are lax about prisoners relieving themselves of blue balls."

Iruka could see where this was going. The cruel smile on his face sent a shiver of appreciation down Anko's spine. She had a thing for sadists, which was why she liked Ranma so much. His brand of revenge was usually humiliating and painful.

"So you're going to do to him what Naruto did to Sasuke as a joke?"

"Yup. If he really pisses me off I'll put him under a pressure point that makes it impossible to change back. Believe me, I know that one a little too well."

Ranma sensed the idiot coming, so he had everyone get into place.

* * *

Ranma cackled when Naruto used the curse laced balloon on the bastard he just beat the living hell out of.

"You make me so proud kid! I feel like a proud parent who just watched his son pound a guy's teeth in, broke half his bones and made him wet himself in fear!" he crowed.

Anko was too busy leaning against a tree howling with laughter. Naruto didn't kick Mizuki's ass...he beat the living shit out of him twice over and cursed him with a female body when he was about to be sent to a men-only prison. Mizuki was screwed...both figuratively and literally once he got to the prison.

"Was what he said true? Do I have the fox inside me?" he asked the others.

"I told you I sensed demonic energy coming out of you when you were pissed I ate all your ramen. What's the big deal about a fox anyway?"

"The Kyuubi no Yoko is the strongest of the nine tailed beasts and attacked right on the day Naruto was born. The Fourth sealed him in Naruto and left instructions he was to be treated a hero because he was now the one holding the Fox back," said Iruka in his teaching mode.

Ranma blinked.

"Hold up. This fox attacked on the day he was born, right? Probably killing a ton of shinobi and civilians in the process?"

"Yeah. Why do you think the Third created the Kyuubi festival? It's in honor of those who died in the battle," said Anko.

"So just to be clear...practically all the shinobi old enough to remember the attack know the fox was sealed, and its simple deduction to figure out who it was. Naturally the attack would have left a lot of bereft families who lost loved ones in battle."

"Yeah, and?" asked Iruka, wanting to know what he was getting at.

"You people actually celebrate their sacrifice with a festival, even though most people know _who_ the Fox is sealed in. And I'm assuming someone told the people about Naruto's condition. Was the Fourth Hokage a fucking idiot?"

"OI!" said Naruto. He liked the Fourth.

"You don't celebrate a tragedy like that or tell people what really happened to the fox! That's just begging to kill the poor sap stuck with it inside them! Damn, I always wondered why those mobs hated Naruto enough to kill him. No amount of pranks would cause that reaction," said Ranma in disbelief.

Iruka and Anko looked at him in surprise. They didn't look at things from that perspective.

"That being said, I catch any of those idiots around my house again I'm chucking their asses in with those accursed tigers that frequently try to get into my yard."

"Wait, so you don't mind foxes?" asked Iruka in surprise.

"Iruka, you've seen me around town. I'm sure you must have heard the reaction I had to the fact I had to catch that blasted Tora for the only time. What the hell makes you think I care about foxes?"

"Because foxes are part of the feline community," said Iruka. He taught biology along with history.

"Yes, but from what I saw of the pictures, the fox in question has ears the size of pylons and looks like an oversized rabbit with nine tails. How the hell am I supposed to be scared of something like _that_?" he asked.

_**'I don't care who that bastard is! He's dead for that rabbit comment dammit!**_ ' thought a voice inside Naruto. He noticed sourly that the woman who acted as the bars was too busy laughing her ass off to comment herself. Even the damn human who sealed him there was laughing at the remark.

* * *

Sarutobi was sweatdropping because of the comments Ranma made about celebrating a tragedy and inadvertently giving people someone to direct their grief at. The sad fact was that he was entirely correct in his snide remarks.

Still, when he heard Ranma's idea of revenge for Mizuki's trick, he couldn't help but feel a small, minute form of pity...right before he reminded himself that it was thanks to that traitor he had to deal with the ANBU getting a good laugh at his expense because of Naruto and his naked woman henge.

After that any pity he had for him washed away.

* * *

Naruto handed over the scroll without a fuss. Anko had taken Mizuki to play with while Ranma and Iruka took the boy straight to the old man to return the scroll. The ANBU were more concerned with mobs trying to bother them than escorting them to the old man.

"I'm going to mark this as a B rank mission on your record, since you did graduate earlier. That being said, you do realize you will need a third member in your team to fulfill the three-man requirement?" he asked.

"Meh. I can create as many shadow clones as we need, and we can just join up some other team to help out as back up. Besides, it's either me and Sasuke or a three-man team with two gender-confused boys and most likely a fan girl who will fawn over Sasuke before killing me when they learn of the curse I gave him," said Naruto.

The adults (barring Ranma) sweat dropped. He wasn't wrong.

Ranma had an idea.

"Why not make it an entire team of gender-confused people? We could specialize in infiltration," said Ranma.

The Hokage blinked. That didn't sound like a bad idea actually. Plus it meant Naruto would actually be taught by someone who liked him.

"Done. You'll be the sensei Ranma, though if Sasuke gets his Sharingan he'll have to work with Kakashi for a little while."

"Fair enough. So we'll be a back up team in case shit hits the fan, right?"

"Exactly. Between Naruto's clones and your unique abilities I'm sure you can handle anything thrown at you."

* * *

"Team Four will be Naruto Uzumaki, Tsuki, and Sasuke Uchiha. Your sensei will be Ranma Saotome," said Iruka.

In order to keep up appearances, Sasuke had a shadow clone play the part of his female form. Not many people questioned it, though the sounds of disappointed fan girls was music to his ears.

Ranma walked in with a grin, and collected the 'trio' without a word.

"Alright kiddies, since normally the Hokage has us doing some half assed teamwork exercise, I have come up with something uniquely my own! Screw getting bells. You want to be genin, you gotta do something for me first."

Naruto was the first to react to this announcement.

"We are _not_ getting rid of the Fire Country Tigers that like to sleep outside your window," he said flatly.

"How the hell did you... I was planning on having you flare Mr. Fuzzy's KI at the damn things, but if you want to do it by hand..."

"Bring on the cats!" said Naruto when he heard that.

Kyuubi was surprisingly friendly towards Ranma when, after he used some obscure martial arts method to talk to the massive fox, found that the kid was his kind of human. He didn't care about anyone else so long as he could laugh at their misfortune.

There was a reason why Ranma actually gave Naruto something as dangerous as the powdered version of Jusenkyo springs.

(Kyuubi found the joke he had the kid play on the Uchiha brat so damn funny he still laughed about it. And since Naruto fully intended to curse the other one as well, he would work with the kid for a while.)

"I still don't get why he doesn't get rid of them himself," said Tsuki.

"Long story short, Ranma-sensei has cat issues. Not sure why, only that if one gets too close he snaps and starts acting like one. The only time he was sent to catch the feline which shall die, the amount of damage he caused was so bad he was permanently blacklisted," said Naruto. He was flaring Kyuubi's KI at the massive tigers, who booked when they sensed it.

"Wait...does that mean we'll never have a crack at that damn cat?" said Sasuke.

"Maybe when you get the spinny eyes of doom," said Ranma. He was remarkably calm with the KI Naruto was throwing around. Then again, the tigers had cleared out by now.

"Damn...I was hoping to test genjutsu on it until it gave out of a heart attack..." said Sasuke pouting.

For some bizarre reason, his girl form was absurdly good at genjutsu. He could _not_ figure out why either.

"Meh. If you're lucky I'll send you out to kill it as an A rank assassination mission without the Hokage figuring out what the request is."

"I think the shinobi forces would thank you for it to be honest," said Naruto.

"Anyway, Team 4 is officially on the books as a support unit. Which brings me to my next agenda. Starting tomorrow the two of you will move into the house as students until your fighting ability suits _my _standards for kids your age."

The two looked at each other.

"Fine by me," said Sasuke.

"I already have a room here anyway, so why not?" shrugged Naruto.


	3. Chapter 3

One month after they became an official team, Team 4 was finally called in to act as back up. Kurenai, who had finally decided to let her team take what should have been a simple C rank, had a run in with the Demon Brothers ten miles outside village limits.

Since the two were rumored to travel with Zabuza of the Bloody Mist, the Hokage decided to err on the side of caution and send in Ranma.

The month of intense training did wonders for the gender-bent team. Sasuke walked around with pride in his skills, Naruto was much more coordinated, and Ranma was kept under control training his new vic...er, students.

The fact they had yet to take any missions at all didn't bother him one bit. The demonic paperwork from hell caused by Saotome had been missing of late and he was loving every minute of it.

Today they were in their female forms, all three of them. Sarutobi found it amusing that Naruto, in a show of solidarity, kept up his henge for hours as a girl and pulled it off. It helped that Ranma was all too happy to show him the little tricks females knew to make it seem more real.

"Team 4, AKA Team Gender-Bender. And no, I didn't come up with that one. It's the nickname the ANBU labeled you after the first time you ran around in female form," said the Hokage dryly.

The three stood up straight.

"You three have been tasked with backing up Team 8, which is led by Kurenai. And Tsuki-chan, I'm sure if you ask right and explain the curse issue she'll help you with your illusions. She is one of our best Genjutsu masters."

Tsuki perked up at that.

"Naruko, you'll be happy to know Kiba will be there, and so long as property damage can be blamed on the bad guys go nuts."

The perky blond cheered. The Hokage clearly knew the gender-bent boy too well, particularly when he realized Naruto would start emulating Ranma's bad habits.

"Ranma, please try to keep the bridge in question intact and the client alive. Other than that, pin the blame on someone else for all I care. The lack of paperwork caused by you is heavenly," said the Hokage.

"Will do Gramps," said Ranma flippantly.

When they left, one of the ANBU finally spoke up.

"Sir, why do you allow Team 4 to get away with calling you such disrespectful names?" asked Squirrel.

"Ah, but you misunderstand. The fact they merely call me Gramps or Jiji is still a sign of respect," said Sarutobi knowingly.

"How do you figure, sir?" asked Bull.

"Think about it from my point of view. It's either let them call me Old man, grandpa or other names like that...or let them get really creative. At least they try to listen to me and tone down the damage when I ask," he said sensibly.

The two ANBU sweat dropped. When he put it that way...

* * *

The girls whistled a foreign song Ranma taught them that had most of the older women around them giving them looks. Not good ones either.

Why you ask? The song Ranma taught them from a foreign sailor he met when he came the Elemental Countries was 'The Good Ship Venus'. (If you haven't heard of it, look up _My Wish Order Brother_. Deidara sings it in Chapter 16.)

Ranma had taken an entire day to drill into them appropriate travel gear and how to create sealing scrolls. This also included an hour-long rant to Naruto why a hundred cups of instant ramen were not included.

Funnily enough, for someone who had never used chakra in his life (KI was only half chakra), he managed to do the impossible in only a month's time.

He got Sasuke up to mid chunin in chakra pools and taught him how to spam fireballs out of his mouth for over an hour. Ranma also promised them some of his more awesome techniques like the one that even Lee would beg on his knees for if he found out Ranma knew it. The caterpillar brow kid was a speed junkie with his weights off, and if he found out Ranma knew the 'Chestnuts Over an Open Fire' technique he would be hanging around the house more than he already did.

Ranma still hadn't forgiven Gai for kicking that tiger into his room last week. It was just lucky the man knew about the issue he had with cats, because the collateral damage could have been ten times worse than it was.

The three 'girls' practically ran to the destination. Ranma would have shown them how to water walk across the massive open expanse, except he had no idea how. Instead he turned it into a stamina exercise and had them swim the way there. Two of the three were already in their curse forms, so it wouldn't matter much, and Naruto was learning how to hold his henge under extreme circumstances. It was a win-win either way.

* * *

Kurenai did a double take when she saw the three kunoichi there in the doorway.

"They sent you?" she said in surprise.

"Well yeah, we're registered as a back up unit since we didn't get a full three-man squad," said Ranma.

"How is that possible? What happened to Sasuke?" asked Shino.

"Is Kiba anywhere nearby?" asked Tsuki.

"No. Kurenai has him increasing his stores by tree walking for the next three hours. Hinata is out helping him," said Shino.

"In that case, the truth is that the idiot cursed me with some powders around five years ago and I end up becoming a girl whenever I get hit with cold water. Tell anyone and you're target practice," said Tsuki immediately.

Kurenai looked at Ranma's girl form.

"You gave _Naruto_ the Jusenkyo powders?" she said in annoyance.

"Yup. Best thing I ever did from what I can tell. He only uses them for special cases. Plus if he hadn't, Sasuke would still be an avenging emo," said Ranma.

"Alright then. Here's the situation then..."

Kurenai outlined the issue with Zabuza and what she assumed was his apprentice. Ranma nodded in time, having read the BINGO book that Anko got him for his birthday last year.

"Alright then. Kurenai, can you teach the kids those chakra control exercises you showed your team? I have no idea how to go about it. In exchange I'll show Hinata a few tricks and help her with her Jyuken, and help Shino over here increase his stamina."

"Deal."

* * *

Ranma went to Hinata and had her attack to see how good she was at her family style.

She was left disappointed. The Jyuken didn't suit someone as timid as Hinata at all. So he taught her a few Chinese Kenpo moves instead, and the girl quickly grasped the concept. She didn't even stutter once until Naruto came around with food.

In the meantime, while she ate some food, Ranma got Shino started one some advanced forms of his family style, which was one of the few he actually recognized. Shino was surprised at this fact, but pleased as well.

The fact that even as a girl Ranma didn't react to his massive hive crawling over him was a plus in his book as well. Ranma was one of the very few villagers who greeted them like normal people and didn't freak out about the human hives. In fact he went out of his way to chat with Shino's father, Shibi, which amused the man.

Sasuke ran into the apprentice when he was collecting plants for dinner. One of the things Ranma had them do for a week was learn poisonous varieties and edible ones. They had to memorize each plant and he quizzed them. If they got it wrong, then they had to eat a tiny sample just so they could recognize it if they ate it again. He always had the antidotes on hand as well.

The irony was that when the ANBU and Hunter nin heard of the practice, they went to his house for notes.

The good news was that living with the insane teacher was making him far stronger than he remembered his brother being at the same age. Sure, Itachi was a jounin by the time he was 13, however Sasuke couldn't remember a time he actually fought a taijutsu master without the Sharingan.

If that didn't make him stronger than his brother, he didn't know what would.

* * *

The 'girl' who was gathering herbs stared at her when she deftly picked edible plants around the area.

"If you're looking for herbs used to heal, there's some good ones about three feet from that willow," said Tsuki.

Haku blinked, and saw she was correct.

"I don't recognize you from earlier."

"We just got here. Coincidentally, what element does Zabuza use most? Our sensei wants to know so we can pin the blame on collateral damage on him," said Tsuki.

Haku blinked twice, surprised by that question.

"He's called Zabuza, Demon of the Mist. Do I really need to explain?"

"Our sensei can cause a lot of collateral damage and he really hates filling out the paperwork for it. It's one of the questions we're supposed to ask," shrugged Tsuki.

"In that case tell him its water," said Haku amused.

"Prepare to be stuck in curse form the entire fight. Got it."

"Curse form?"

"We have a name for our team in Konoha, and this is our first official mission."

"What?"

"We're Konoha's 'Gender-bender' team, because each of us can turn into a girl whether by curse or a really good henge."

"Why tell me?"

"You told me the element, I thought I would give you fair warning about our teacher," said Sasuke.

"...Fair warning?"

"Our teacher is known for causing enough paperwork to make a Kage cry tears of blood. Last time he was forced to catch the Fire Daimyo's Wife's cat because of some idiots, the collateral damage and paper damn near overtook the office...and that was before someone took pity on him and caught the cat. Most of the damage was caused by this weird ass condition that happens whenever a cat gets too close to him. And then he ran around the village destroying shit until he calmed down."

Haku's eyes were naturally wide at this information.

"Why didn't anyone stop him?"

"Because the only one who can even come close to matching him when he's like that is Might Gai, and that man is a serious nut job...who happened to be out of the village at the time of the incident."

Tsuki got up, carrying her large basket full of edible plants.

"Anyway, good luck getting the herbs you need."

"Thanks. By the way, I'm a guy."

"I know. Like I said, our entire team is full of people who can shift genders without thinking. If we couldn't tell a feminine guy from a girl after a month of that, we should quit the shinobi life."

Haku had nothing to say about that, because really, how often do you come across an entire team that can switch genders?

_(Never...unless you write fanfiction and find it amusing as hell to see Sasuke forced to become a girl and deal with that time of the month and the look on Kakashi's face when he realizes he's perving on an underage boy.)_

* * *

"Oh man, why did it have to be water element? That's a bitch to fight with and cause damage. Why couldn't he be fire or wind?" complained Ranma.

"What's so bad about water?" asked Kurenai.

"Spent most of my life avoiding it, to be honest. At least until I came to terms with my cursed form," said Ranma.

"I have a better question!" said Kiba.

"Go ahead dog breath," said Ranma.

"Are you really the same Saotome Ranma who keeps ending up with a shit load of marriage proposals that you can only get out of through martial arts practices no one has ever even heard of?" asked Kiba.

"Yup. And let me tell ya, it took _forever_ to break the ones I left home. My pops was a real jerk, always promising me to people just to get out of debt."

"How did you manage it then?" asked Shino.

"Found out by accident that my mom got sole custody a day before she left and that the idiot didn't even have the right to give me away like that. Once I learned that, any engagements made by the moron immediately became null and void...well, except for the one that I got by complete accident because neither of us spoke a word of Chinese."

Seeing he had their attention, Ranma elaborated. Naruko and Tsuki got some popcorn from out of nowhere, because Ranma's stories were always vastly entertaining to hear.

"It was like this...a month after I got cursed because Pops couldn't read Chinese and took us to some obscure training ground he had only heard of, we ended up in this village full of Amazons. Amazons are these women who can kick anyone's ass barring Gai or a few rare taijutsu nuts in the village because they are just that good. Anyway they were having this competition that day and when the fight ended, we found out the hard way that the food we were eating belonged to the winner as their prize. The girl wasn't happy about it, so I challenged her like an idiot without knowing a thing about Amazon law. I won and ended up getting what they call 'Kiss of Death', which basically meant the girl had to kill me to restore her pride."

Kiba raised a hand.

"Why didn't they try to keep you for breeding purposes?"

"Because at the time, I was in my curse form. To put this in perspective, can someone hand me some hot water?"

Tsuki tossed him a small thermos. It was the same one Ranma had given her for training purposes. Ranma dumped it on his head, revealing a man instead of the red-haired bombshell.

"WOAH! How did you do that?" asked Kiba.

"The female half _is_ my curse form. Get hit with cold, turn into a girl, hit by hot, return to normal. Took me years to give up on finding a cure."

Suddenly Kiba turned to look at Tsuki.

"So tell me...are there any other people who are cursed in the village?"

"Yeah, why?"

"So does that mean the kunoichi beside me eating popcorn is really Sasuke?"

Tsuki choked.

Naruko patted her on the back with a good thump. Once her normal color returned, the girl glared at Kiba.

"What makes you ask?" said Ranma, grinning.

"Because the only person I know of that would reek of tomatoes, fire and that unique carnation scent is the Uchiha," said Kiba grinning.

"Dammit! Dobe, I am going to murder you!" snarled Tsuki, looking at Naruko.

"Give it a rest Teme. It's not like we can't curse him with something completely embarrassing later."

"Wait, what?" said Kiba suddenly.

"Like I was saying, because I was in girl form at the time, I got the Kiss of Death, which resulted in the girl whose name was Shampoo, to follow me everywhere trying to kill me. Eventually we got the mistake cleared up with the village, but there was a bit of a problem with what to do with me. So, after years of speaking legalize to get out of marriages I didn't even want, I came up with a brilliant solution. I would become part of their village as an honorary member and train with them for ten years before I could leave to live my own life. Considering I had just taken out a mountain a week before, they were more than happy with that deal."

"Wait, was that after you took out that Saffron guy?" asked Naruko.

"Yup."

"Sweet..."

"So, any questions?"

"Yeah, why did these two talk like they could curse me for mentioning the fact Tsuki is Sasuke?" asked Kiba.

"Gave Naruto a box full of powdered Jusekyo spring water as a joke. First thing he did with it was hit Sasuke with a water balloon that had been spiked with Spring of Drowned Girl. Funniest damn chase I've seen in years!" said Ranma gleefully.

"Dude, you gave _Naruto_ a box full of powdered curses?" said Kiba incredulously.

"Considering he developed a way to really make people suffer and has only three people with it to date? Kid's a lot more forgiving than I am," said Ranma.

"Only three? I would have assumed he would have used half of them up by now," said Kurenai.

"Sasuke, Ibiki and Mizuki."

"He got _Ibiki_?" said Kurenai incredulous.

"That was an accident! I didn't know the powder wasn't the instant itch one!" said Naruko.

"Still, pretty damn funny to see Ibiki of all things turn into an animal when hit with cold water. Anko still hasn't stopped laughing her ass off when I told her what really happened," said Ranma.

Kurenai rubbed her forehead, trying to dispel her current headache.


	4. Chapter 4

Kiba, once informed that yes, Sasuke was cursed to become a girl when hit by cold water and decided to just go with it, was surprisingly not that annoying about it.

This may have had something to do with the fact that Sasuke threatened to curse him with something even worse, and Naruto completely backed him up by listing some of the powders he had yet to test. One of which was Spring of Drowned Black Piglet...and Sasuke threatened to throw him into the Akamichi clan compound on BBQ night.

Naruto still had yet to say what Ibiki's form was though. The man really wasn't happy when he found out about the mistake and that he would have to live with the new curse.

* * *

Once Ranma's team had the chakra control thing down enough to suit Kurenai, Tsuki immediately asked her for help with her genjutsu. Ranma had pointed out that most Uchiha couldn't really fight without their precious eyes on, so it would come in handy when he fought Itachi and shoved his teeth down his throat by kicking his ass without using his eyes.

There was a reason why Sasuke liked Ranma as a teacher and actually paid attention to the lessons. Ranma was the poster child for needless violence and not above using it on family, particularly if they deserved it. When informed of _why_ Sasuke wanted to kill Itachi, the boy immediately gave him a new goal to work towards.

Completely and utterly crushing him to the point where he was no longer a threat. Where's the fun of training all that time to kill someone if they aren't alive to humiliate later? Sure, he could get revenge for his clan, but wouldn't it be more fun to beat the living hell out of his brother and make his life miserable in realizing Sasuke's superiority?

And just that like, he had a hooked Uchiha. While the Hokage didn't fully approve of his methods, he did like the fact that Sasuke no longer had a massive kunai lodged in his ass. Sure, he was an arrogant little brat, but now he was tolerable about it. The boy no longer listened to the praises the council gave him because of his lineage!

If that wasn't improvement over his previous attitude, nothing was!

Kurenai was surprised at his...her request, but since none of her students cared for the art she agreed to help. If only because Ranma had little knowledge about chakra-based fighting, but was more than happy to direct them to those that did.

The only reason he even agreed to be a teacher was because he liked the two, and it was less awkward teaching them how to use their unique skills compared to some of the other people who would likely fawn over the Uchiha and ignore Naruto.

Though Kurenai was the first to admit she liked the trick Sasuke pulled to get the top kunoichi spot as well as Rookie of the Year. When informed that it was either let him take both or allow a _fan girl_ of all people to get it, her decision was clear.

Let the cursed Uchiha take both spots. Fan girls had no place as shinobi, unless they were weapon and strong women fan girls who worked to improve their skills.

* * *

Sasuke was up on the poles Ranma had sealed away. He was fighting a confused Kiba out of boredom.

"Why are we on poles again?"

"Ranma had us learn how to fight on poles. Said it would make fighting on flat surfaces much, much easier later. Have to admit, you learn how to notice your surroundings a hell of a lot better like this. In order to win dinner, you have to knock me into the water. Same goes for me."

"You're on!"

Fists and feet flew between them. In the end Sasuke won because he was more used to fighting like that.

"Oi! You two done with the poles yet? Shino wants to have a go with me!" yelled Naruto.

"We're done. Dog-breath lost!" Sasuke yelled back.

Naruto jumped up on to the nearest pole, and Shino used chakra to walk up another.

"After this we'll have a four-on-four attack. Sound good to you?" asked Naruto.

"That sounds like fun," grinned Sasuke.

Naruto struck at Shino at some unseen signal. The bug user had to admit, this Ranma knew what he was doing. Naruto jumped around like a bird in the air on the poles. Shino was hard pressed to fend off the blond's attack. Suddenly Naruto got Shino to lose his footing and crash into the water.

"Winner, Uzumaki the moron," said Sasuke. Kiba was too busy gaping.

"Whoot! Who's up for a battle royal?" asked Naruto.

"Count me in!" said Sasuke.

"Hah! I bet I could beat the dobe easily!" said Kiba grinning.

"Count me out," said Shino. He was rather winded from sparring with Naruto.

"In that case, count Hinata-chan in," said a familiar voice.

"Ano..." said Hinata, putting her fingers together nervously.

"Hinata-chan, you have some serious confidence issues. The only way to get over that is to learn how to work past it on your own. So get up there and show those boys how a girl fights!"

"Ano..."

Ranma picked her up and threw her into the air. She had no choice but to use her flexible body to land on a pole or get hurt.

"You can come down once you prove how good you are!" yelled Ranma.

"Come on Hinata-chan! There's no way you could possibly be worse than Kiba!" said Naruto.

"OI!"

"Face it Hinata-san, you won't get anywhere arguing with him. Besides..." Sasuke said, leaning in close so Naruto didn't hear "I hear Naruto likes girls who can keep up with him. At the very least you'll one up Sakura."

Hinata blushed, then became more determined. No way was she going to let that pink haired hussy take her man!

"Alright kiddies, time to show your real skill! Either you knock out your opponent or they land out-of-bounds, which is water! Winner is last man or girl standing! Begin!" shouted Ranma.

Naruto darted on the poles lightly while Kiba struggled to keep his balance. Tree climbing was little use here, since it didn't do much to keep you on the small surface. Naruto and Sasuke were old pros at this, since Ranma had them on the poles every morning while teaching them taijutsu, among other disciplines.

Hinata went after Kiba, her footing more sure than the Inuzuka. He kept slipping on the poles, while her Jyuken training gave her an edge.

During the week they had been there, Ranma had been helping her learn Kaiten. Since the most she had to do was spin really fast while expelling a lot of chakra in almost all the points, it wasn't that hard to help her out.

It took her a while to get the hang of spinning like that, but Ranma once again put an obscure martial arts training trick into use. This time it was a KI based attack that could produce tornadoes. Hinata was the one to send Kiba flying into the water. Then she went after Sasuke, since she was too shy to go against Naruto without fainting.

Sasuke tripped Naruto at the last second, then faced against the Hyuuga girl.

The two of them exchanged blows for a good ten minutes before she caught him off guard with a Jyuken-laced kick to the shins. Sasuke fell into the water and Tsuki came out spewing the sea water in annoyance.

"Winner, Hyuga Hinata! Well done, Hinata-chan! I didn't know you could use Jyuken with your feet!" said Ranma.

Hinata blushed. She had been so caught up with fighting that she forgot Naruto was watching.

She jumped off the poles, which Ranma collapsed with a few hits. He had worked out a way to seal them away thanks to Jiraiya getting a good look at his female half without a top on. One hit with what little chakra he could use, and they collapsed for easy storage.

"Well done, Hinata-chan! Now that is more like it! Seems to me your only real problem is getting started," said Ranma.

In fact, once Hinata really got going she was an absolute powerhouse compared to her teammates. Now all Ranma had to do was get her to be like that more often.

* * *

Kurenai looked at her coffee and then at Ranma again. She thought she was drinking it straight with only a few cubes of sugar like always, but it was possible that it had been spiked by the Martial Artist.

"I'm sorry, you want to do _what_ now?" she asked again.

"I was hoping you could trade Tsuki for Hinata for a few months. The girl has a real knack for hand to hand, and Tsuki has been wanting to learn genjutsu since she discovered her talents for it. In exchange the boys are free to come by and join in the open sparring sessions at my house."

"While I could easily help Tsuki-chan with her genjutsu, I would like to know the reason why you want Hinata instead of Kiba."

"Hinata kicked Sasuke and Kiba's ass during their mock battle royale on the poles. She's a natural at my kind of fighting, with the only issue I've seen was her confidence. Once she got started she completely annihilated all opposition."

Kurenai blinked.

"That does it...this has to be spiked. I could have sworn you just said Hinata beat Sasuke."

"She did. Once she quit thinking about it, she kicked ass."

"Are you sure we're talking about the same girl?"

"I can teach Hinata-chan to quit thinking about fighting and kick ass if I had a few months with her. And I'll teach her a few Chinese tricks to heal people with while I'm at it. But I need your permission to borrow her."

"You do realize that she isn't my daughter right? I would have to get the approval of her father Hiashi."

"Mr. Pale-eyed-stick-up-his-ass?" said Ranma.

"You know of him. Good."

"He complained about the fact I was helping Neji with his Jyuken," said Ranma.

"You know Neji?"

"Gai has an annoying tendency of visiting me in the mornings. He apparently overheard something about the fact I was used to fighting my pops in the morning. Ever since then he brings his genin over for breakfast."

"Why haven't you chased them out then?"

"Gai scares the tigers that live near my house," said Ranma flatly.

It was well-known after the 'Tora' incident that Ranma had a real fear of cats in any shape. Being near one tended to bring out a rather odd side to Ranma that was called the Neko-Ken. The last time it happened, he vanished into the Forest of Death for an hour.

No one knew how the hell he returned to normal, and Ranma refused to say a word about what happened.

Though now that Kurenai thought about it, that was around the time Ranma started hanging around Anko a lot...

* * *

Haku wasn't eager to face Saotome. He had heard things about that man. Like the fact that even though he could barely use a genin's worth of chakra, he was considered an S class threat. He couldn't be reasonably assured that they would win this one.

"Oh...so you're Zabuza? Sure you ain't compensating for something old man?" asked Ranma. Kiba and Shino were staying with Tsunami and Inari just in case.

"I'll show you old man, you little..." growled Zabuza.

And just like that, four clones appeared.

"Sasuke, you're up," said Ranma.

Sasuke destroyed them without a single jutsu...and ended up getting splashed in the process. Needless to say Zabuza and Haku were staring.

"I thought we agreed gender-neutral clothes only?" asked Ranma.

"Urusai! All the other clothes are in the wash!" said Tsuki.

"But...how...?"

Sasuke had been wearing a very form-fitting shirt and shorts, both with the Uchiha fan on the back. With the curse active, they showed more of his...er, her assets than was strictly appropriate. Needless to say, Tsuki wasn't wearing a bra or breast band, to Kurenai's annoyance.

Ranma looked at the twitching woman.

"I told them gender-neutral clothes only unless it was their day off. Think you could remind her of that?"

"I think we could arrange something," said a twitching Kurenai. It was a good thing Kiba and Shino weren't there, or they would both have nose bleeds by now.

"Naruto, Hinata, Sasuke, you deal with the kid. Kurenai and I will handle Zabuza. Remember Hinata, don't think about what you are doing, just react to the situation at hand and you'll be fine."

"Hai, Ranma-sensei."


	5. Chapter 5

Sasuke and Naruto went after Haku while Hinata protected the bridge builder. Her newly developed Kaiten would protect the old man better than their meager taijutsu skills. Meanwhile Ranma and Kurenai were fighting off Zabuza.

Ranma was debating how the hell she was going to take this guy out while pinning the blame on Zabuza for any damage she gave to the bridge. Water was extremely difficult to use, since she had avoided it like the bloody plague since getting the stupid curse. She could do lighting, fire, hell, wind was one of her best, but water?

Finally, in a fit of annoyance Ranma (who had been hit by a water jutsu early on...though to be fair the amount of mist in the area would have activated the damn curse anyway) used something she rarely needed.

About three years before she ran into Naruto, Ranma came across the secret home of a summons clan. Specifically the Phoenix clan. All they needed to hear was that he was the same upstart who kicked Saffron's high and mighty ass and they gave him a rare KI-based summons scroll...as well as a chakra-based one.

They liked him not only because he took out Saffron (even if he did have a lot of help at the time) but also because he wouldn't call upon them unless he actually needed a hand or he was introducing a new summoner.

Plus they had a feeling that Ranma would be in the thick of a war they sensed coming within the next couple of decades or so.

The Phoenix clan had another name, one only used by other summons.

Keepers of the Sacred Flame. They maintained a large source of fire that is said to have come from Amaterasu herself from which they used to reincarnate in case of death. It was said by fire type ninja that to be granted permission to see the flames and learn senjutsu (sage arts) from the Phoenix or any of the noble clans was to learn how to become a full Master of the element the clan symbolized.

Needless to say the Uchiha clan would have given up a set of their precious eyes just for a chance to sign the scroll. If they had known _Ranma_ had a chakra copy of the scroll they wouldn't have hesitated to offer their highest ranked female member just for a chance at it. Thankfully for the somewhat unkillable Martial Artist, the clan had been killed off by Itachi two years before he ever reached Konoha.

"SUMMONING!" scowled Ranma.

Kurenai paused from layering her genjutsu to actually look for the gender-confused boy. He could do summonings but not the Shadow Clone?

"_DAMN YOU SAOTOME! YOU KNOW WE HATE THE WET!"_ came a pissed off trill.

"Not my fault! That jerk with the oversized butcher knife is the one who brought this stupid mist!" said Ranma annoyed.

"_He did, did he?"_ said the voice again, sounding beyond irritated.

Seconds later you could hear Zabuza yelling at someone or something who was attacking him. From the sounds of it, it was a bird of some kind. After five minutes of Zabuza swearing like a sailor while something clawed the living hell out of him, he dropped the mist hiding him.

It was either that or get his eyes gouged out by a massive red bird with three inch long talons that were razor sharp. You could see where the bird had nearly clawed his face off.

It was because of this that they found out that Gato had decided to betray the missing nin. Apparently he hadn't been aware that a back up unit had been sent to help out Team 8.

Tsuki and Naruko paused in their tag team of Haku (who was beyond embarrassed that the two had hog-tied him with ninja wire and sitting on him to keep movement from occurring) to look across the bridge to see a red bird, a pissed off Zabuza, and a twitching Ranma.

"Oi Eyebrows. If I dealt with the goon patrol can you take out Gato and any blame for damages caused?"

"Deal. Oh, and call off this damn bird!"

"Twilight, you can go home. Say hi to Rein for me," said Ranma.

"_Will do... Also, if you ever summon me in such a damn area again I will come for you next time."_

"You can try you overgrown parakeet," Ranma shot back flippantly. If the phoenix had been human, it would have flipped him off. Instead it shot a ball of fire at his precious pigtail before vanishing. Ranma decided to use his irritation to deal with the thugs Gato hired.

"_HITEN SHORYU HA!"_ he snarled, sending a twister at the bandits and thugs. The tornado took out a good three feet of bridge and well over three-quarters of the thugs Gato hired.

Zabuza looked annoyed that the girl...boy...whatever, was able to show him up and not look winded. He killed Gato in the hopes of at least redeeming his dignity. It didn't work. Ranma was too impressive a specimen for someone who used a f**king huge sword as a weapon to match.

It was something of a joke between Team 4 that most men felt emasculated whenever they heard Ranma's stories or saw some of his tricks.

Sasuke and Naruto never felt less than manly around him for three reasons.

One, they had barely hit puberty. Two, they were gender-confused kids who could turn into girls on request. And Three, which was their usual excuse: They were being trained by a god among men! Why should they care about their masculinity when the guy was training them to be just like him?

Once Gato was dead, Tsuki and Naruto untied Haku...and gave him a parting shot about liking bondage because they saw _something_ poking up in the lower half of his body, which annoyed Haku to the point that he shot a few ice senbon at them for the comment. Zabuza had only heard half of it, but he filed that one for later.

* * *

Ranma was in for a bit of a surprise when he got back to Konoha with the others. Apparently Zabuza had brokered a deal with the old Hokage for a place in the Konoha ranks and the end result was that his apprentice (who was more like his son) was stuck on probation and given the option of joining Ranma's team or the hospital.

Haku correctly assumed staying with Ranma would give him more opportunities to work on his healing jutsu and learn something new as well.

Besides, he was so girly looking without the henge that he fit the theme of Team 4 rather well, to Zabuza's obvious amusement. He still froze his pseudo-father's underwear drawer for the laughter though.

* * *

"GET BACK HERE YOU DAMN FREAKS!"screamed the chunin. He was among those who hated Naruto and he had accidentally seen Sasuke turn into a girl earlier. They had been pranking him when the Uchiha got hit by the cold water. The two stopped cold, and looked at the chunin.

"Did you just have the gall to call us _freaks_?" demanded Tsuki.

"You two deviants are freaks and weirdos! Real men don't go parading around like girls!"

"Are you saying that girls are freaks?" said Naruto loudly, attracting the attention of every kunoichi in hearing distance, which with Naruto's voice was easily three blocks around him.

The chunin seemed to realize his predicament, because one of the kunoichi who heard Naruto's comment was Ranma's drinking buddy Anko.

Before he could explain what he had seen, Anko was on him like Tora on catnip. There was no escape as the kunoichi beat the man bloody. Anko waved them off...the man clearly wasn't going to give them the training run they usually went for by pranking people.

"Well this sucks... You know Ranma is going to make us girls all day because I was caught..." complained Tsuki.

"Yeah, but today is one of the Hinata-chan days, remember?" Naruto reminded her.

"Ah...forgot about that."

On their days off, which was every other day, Hinata came over to train with Ranma. The result was that the girl was slowly loosing her stutter, something Kurenai had been trying and failing to get rid of.

An added benefit was that Hinata was starting to hate her father, not because he called her weak, but due to Ranma's misinterpretation of his words. Apparently the martial artist believed the Hyuga clan head was a sexist bastard who assumed kunoichi shouldn't even be around.

That ticked off Hinata something fierce, and gave her a new goal to work towards aside from getting rid of the seal on the branch family. She wanted to kick her father's ass for thinking girls were weak.

(This misconception was not helped by the fact that he spent a lot of time helping Neji and not Hinata and Hanabi. Since Hanabi had yet to go through puberty, Hinata could only assume he was merely biding his time before he started in on her sister.)

They were about to pass the sector where the Hyuga clan lived when they heard a voice cussing out Hiashi, the Clan Head. The voice was rather eloquent and was about as creative as a woman who worked in the red lights district combined with the passion of a sailor on leave denied liquor or women.

Tsuki and Naruto paused in their walk and looked at each other.

The voice was Hinata.

Naturally the two jumped onto the wall hiding the scene, until a hand snaked and brought them onto a nearby roof. Ranma was recording the entire thing for later.

Hinata was skipping Jyuken entirely and using various forms of hand to hand combat to deliver the worst beating her father had ever received. Her voice delivered cutting insults and swear words that made the Hyuga elders cringe and the Branch members secretly cheering her on. Finally she kicked him up in the air in a manner very reminiscent of Lee's Leaf Hurricane to a horrified Neji who recognized the move in a heartbeat.

The damage delivered by the pissed off girl took over two weeks to properly heal. The psychological damage took six months and that was after Hinata chewed out the Elders who openly contemplated putting the curse seal on her younger sister.

Needless to say Hiashi never tried to train (read: beat the living hell out of) Hinata again. He also winced whenever Ranma came into view.

Kurenai was very happy about this for obvious reasons. Kiba sure wasn't, because thanks to the new confidence Hinata had she was extra bitchy during that time of the month.

Unfortunately for dog boy, when Anko saw the video she immediately started training the girl...

* * *

"Team Gender-Bender. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is laundry," said the Hokage.

"I have only one question. Who needs their laundry done and why can't they do it themselves?" asked Ranma.

"It's Gai and..."

"We accept!" said Ranma. As one the three turned to give him an odd look. They knew Gai. His clothes were horrendous and possibly had _things_ growing from all the training he did.

Five minutes after they left the tower, Naruto said what was on their mind.

"Ranma, what the hell?"

"We burn the spandex and refill his closet with clothes that don't make us gouge our eyes out after hiding the fact under a genjutsu only Gai and Lee will see," he explained.

"SOLD!" said the trio.

A week after that mission, and they were still getting thank yous from people forced to work with Gai. Apparently he had yet to figure out his spandex outfits had been burned, buried, and the soil dropped in an acid jutsu to prevent his 'youthfulness' from spreading through the water table.

All of this was immediately topped by what happened two weeks after Ranma's gender-bent team gave Gai's closet a total revamping. Right as they were about to head to a farm just outside the village for a mission (wearing weights and heading out to clear out an entire field with no clones) something with dark raven black hair the same shade as Ranma's guy form tackled the martial artist with a cry of "DADDY!"

Needless to say everyone within earshot stopped what they were doing to see who was calling the guy daddy.

"Naginata! You finally pass that test the old hag gave you?"

The child looked up from their glomping victim to reveal a very pretty girl wearing Chinese clothing in red, blue and yellow with a well used Naginata on her back. Her hair was the exactly same shade as Ranma's guy form, and she had all the telltale signs of a martial artist.

"Grandma Cologne said I could finally live with you!"

In order to be allowed out of the Amazon village without Shampoo or worse Cologne following him, Ranma had to add to the Amazon gene pool by having a kid. This had the added effect of finally getting Shampoo off his back after he introduced her fanatical fan boy to a previous unknown form of martial arts just so he could beat her in a 'fight'.

And ever since then Shampoo had been stuck with the idiot who turned into a goose when wet. It was a match made in hell.

Ranma had at least been given the dubious honor of naming his two kids. One of which was with his mother learning from her to carry on the line and hopefully strangle that damn panda.

His daughter had stayed with the Amazons until Cologne pronounced her ready to leave the village. Dealing with Ranma for all these years told the village elders they needed new blood for the gene pool, since an outsider could go toe to toe with one of their best elders.

Naginata (daughter) and Tachi (son) were Ranma's only contributions to the collective gene pool that is Earth. After all the pains he went through with the various fiancée he had to deal with, it was a miracle that there were only two.

"Ranma-sensei, who is this?" asked Sasuke carefully.

"Meet Naginata, my daughter."

"WHAT?!"

(Elsewhere in the Hokage tower, the old man was banging his head against something. It was bad enough with just one of them, but what would happen now that the daughter had joined the fray!?)

* * *

"So let me get this straight. Your daughter, who is roughly the same age as your genin, followed you all the way to Konoha after passing some old crone's test...and you want her to join your team?" said the old Hokage, rubbing his forehead.

"Independent contractor under orders of Saotome Ranma," he said quickly.

"Is she as bad as you?"

"Don't make fun of her name/anime addiction/daddy issues or the fact that she hates dealing with idiots, and you should be fine."

"Daddy issues?" said the Hokage faintly.

"She has some serious problems, and I've used her repeatedly to deal with the fiancée that still crop up from time to time. You wouldn't believe the looks I get when my kid beats the hell out of them."

"What about her mother? Shouldn't she be more attached to this Shampoo?"

"Mommy and I are on speaking terms, but that's it. Besides, Daddy has better bedtime stories," said Nagi-chan flatly.

"She has trouble with people trying to take me away because of her grandfather's complete stupidity and stinginess," said Ranma with a shrug.

"If someone who actually wants him not because of that damn panda comes to claim him and beats me, then they are welcome to have him. Until then, they are target practice," said Nagi-chan flatly.

"See why I love my kid?" cackled Ranma.

"She isn't cursed is she?"

"Are you kidding? I've never been near that stupid training ground!" said Nagi-chan insulted.

"Saotome, you owe me weekly allotments of sake for allowing this. That being said, welcome to Konoha Naginata Saotome. Oh, and that allotment starts now!"

Ranma tossed him a bottle of high-grade sake that had a suspicious bag of dried leafy greens taped to the side. Sarutobi raised an eyebrow.

"This what I think it is?"

"Yup. Took forever to get that greenhouse set up, but thankfully there ain't any laws against that here."

"Unless you're under 18 or chunin rank. Scratch the previous demand. Sake and your garden plants once a week."

"Deal."

And like that, Ranma's thirteen-year-old daughter came to live to Konoha.

That poor ninja village...


	6. Chapter 6

Sasuke was looking for some new techniques to use with Naruto when a side panel in the wall opened up without warning. He blinked, then picked out the book that was in there, ignoring the scroll inside.

"...Amazon Tribal Law? What the hell?"

The more he read it, the more confused he became. As far as he was aware, none of the Uchiha clan ever went to China since the village was founded.

So, he took it to Ranma, completely forgetting the scroll in the back of that odd wood paneling. It would be after the second half of the chunin exam that he even remembered the thing existed.

Meeting Naginata on the training poles caused an odd reaction to Sasuke. For those of you confused, most Uchiha are by and large masochists (see _My Wish Order Brother,_ if you don't get this joke) and it is an unspoken rule for female Uchiha heirs to have husbands able to beat them at least once in their early relationships. Since it was only training and Sasuke had been learning from Ranma for only a few months, Naginata forgave him for the rather poor showing on the training poles. Naruto made a far better showing, since Ranma had trained him a bit longer in exchange for making the man laugh his ass off.

As such, Sasuke got his first ever crush on a girl who wasn't after him. Because Ranma confirmed that the book he found was only a few hundred years out of date (a couple of laws had been added, but it was more or less correct) Sasuke knew that the only way to win Nagi-chan's heart was to beat her in an all out fight, preferably without chakra.

On the plus side, he finally awakened his Sharingan under the strain of trying to best the Amazon girl.

Of course that brought on the slight issue of Kakashi when he learned of Tsuki...

* * *

Naruto, in a fit of mischief switched all of Sasuke's clothes with girly ones that immediately made people think Tsuki spent too much time around Anko. Not that she didn't anyway but it was the principle of the thing.

Ranma immediately put him under the Cat-Tongue pressure point, saying he had been wanting to do that for a while now and it would be best to get it out-of-the-way before the exam even started. The result?

Sasuke was stuck as Tsuki until she could learn how to get the Sharingan up to two tomoe at least.

The problem? Kakashi apparently had a loli fetish.

_'I am not perving on my underage student, I am not perving on my underage student, I am not perving on my underage student, I am not...oh who am I kidding? Where is my camera?'_ thought Kakashi when he first saw Tsuki. Her eye twitched, apparently knowing exactly what was on Kakashi's mind.

It didn't help that he had his porn out and was giving her speculative glances.

"Let me make this abundantly clear. I am only here because you are the only sharingan user aside from me in the village. The council is a pain in the ass enough to deal with if they found out that you skimped on training because of your loli fetish, however I know something that will make your skin crawl."

"What?" asked Kakashi, completely unconcerned about anything the 'girl' could throw at him.

"I know Might Gai, a certain blond fox who has several 'powders', one of which can turn you into a house cat when wet, and a teacher who would be more than happy to put the same pressure point he placed on me to keep you from turning back. Now, do you really want to deal with them and quite possibly the Fire Daimyo's Wife when we hand your cursed ass to her as a replacement for Tora once we kill her cat?"

Suddenly Kakashi was all business.

"What do you want to learn first?" he said, pale as a ghost. He didn't doubt for a second she would carry out her threat. He hated cats.

* * *

"Right, so I have enlisted all of my minions into the Chunin exam," said Ranma.

"Did Iruka blow up when he heard you were letting your daughter into it? And how the hell did you manage that when she isn't even a genin?"

"Not after I told him she's my primary defense against any new fiancees. Watching him wince after getting his ass kicked by a thirteen-year-old Amazon girl was hilarious. Coincidentally I have it on tape. As for how I managed it... The Hokage was a bit too preoccupied with something to notice what he signed."

"And that's why I like you Saotome. By the way, why has Hokage-sama been smiling more often?" asked Anko.

"The same reason he didn't realize he signed a newly registered independent contractor into the Chunin exams. Remember that gardening project of mine?"

"You mean the one where... Ooooh...so that's where he got it. You are getting me some of that the next time I get hauled up in front of the council dammit."

"Sure! By the way, Gai has been banned from ever so much as even looking into my garden after he found out what really happened to his clothes."

"Finally copped onto the fact they're gone huh?"

"Nope. Genjutsu broke."

"Damn...fun while it lasted."

"On the contrary. He said so long as they have the weight seals in them like the spandex, he won't go back."

"Wait, what?"

"He laced the spandex with so many weight seals that they became a weapon," said Ranma. It certainly explained the explosion when they hit it with fire...

"So what's the deal with the new girl?"

"Part of the agreement I had with the old hag was to add to the village gene pool. Tachi is living with my mother and Naginata stayed with the Amazons until she passed the old hag's test. Then she came to find me," said Ranma.

"You named your kids after weapons?"

"It was either I name them or the Amazons did. And they have a habit of naming children after female beauty products," said Ranma flatly.

"Seriously?" snorted Anko.

"My former 'wife' was named Shampoo, their village elder is named Cologne, and I kid you not when I say I have spared with Ganier, Frutuse, Trésume and Herbal," said Ranma.

Anko blinked.

"You're kidding...right?"

"Nope. Asked Nagi-chan yourself if you don't believe me. Hell, Shampoo's current husband is named Mousse."

"...You do realize you're talking to someone named after Red Bean Paste right?"

"And I'm named after a horse," said Ranma amused.

"Built like one too," said Anko grinning. She got a good look when the towel slipped in the hot springs through the same hole Jiraiya used to peep on women.

When asked by an amused Kurenai, Anko told her that she was getting her payback for all the times the men on the other side used it to peep on them.

Ranma had figured out she was on the other side from the voice alone, but by then it was too late to cover up the bits.

Didn't stop Anko from making a rather biased commentary for the girls about the men on the other side. Ibiki was one of the few who didn't try to hide from her, to her clear amusement and the fascination of the women.

Needless to say his fan base grew after they got a good look for themselves.

* * *

Anko found the daughter of Saotome waiting for her in her favorite training ground, the Forest of Death.

"What are you intentions for my dad?"

"Damn, he wasn't kidding that you had daddy issues. Let me guess, no matter how I answer I have to fight you?"

"...He may have alluded that you were a decent fighter. Even with the cheats your people use..."

Anko blinked. That kind of recommendation from someone like Saotome meant she was a damn good fighter. Ranma didn't really like chakra, but he didn't discredit it either since it was half physical.

Chakra could only be built and mature properly through experience and use, much like KI in that matter. However there were ways to cheat the system, like Naruto's fuzzy tenant or Anko's cursed mark.

The fact she never once used it while sparring with Ranma, and actively fought the pain that came with it, meant that she had his respect. It was the main reason Ranma got along with her and took her comments on his bits with such ease.

She had something that most people refused to give her unless she forced it. Respect.

"Well then, why don't we fight first and chat about my friendship with Ramna later?"

Naginata grinned. She liked this woman far more than her father's previous fiancees. Those women were annoying and demeaned real fighters everywhere.

There was a reason why the stupid panda feared crossing her.

Anko felt the familiar pain of the stupid curse mark act up halfway into their 'fight' which was more of a spar than anything else. Like always, she ignored it while Naginata's eyes narrowed.

"You have curse on you."

"Yeah, my asshole of a teacher put it on me years ago."

"I take it dad knows?"

"Yup."

"Hmm. You are already three steps ahead his previous fiancees. You don't waste time talking, you fight without thinking about the consequences and you know how to work through pain."

"Not to mention the fact he actually likes me enough to find me whenever he has a cat relapse."

Naginata blinked.

"I approve. You might be good for him, since the dumb panda never bothered you or your school of training."

"Huh?"

"I said I approve of you. Anyone who beats me can have my dad, but you interest me far more."

"You do realize the Uchiha kid has a crush on you, right?"

"He also knows that in order to win my affections he must beat me in combat in either form. So far he has devoted his time training and getting stronger rather than choosing to challenge me directly. Considering the fact that half my suitors didn't think that far ahead, he already has my interest as well."

"What about Uzumaki?"

"Another already vies for his affection. I will not stand in her way."

"Hehehe...I like you kid. You old enough in your village for a drink?"

"Old enough to travel outside without supervision, old enough to drink. Nothing outside of cuddling allowed until you either find a worthy partner or turn 16."

"Off to the bar then!" said Anko with a cheer.

* * *

Ranma blinked.

"Say that again?"

"Mitarashi passed my test. She not only matched me without those cheats of theirs, but she kept me on my toes even when her curse started to act up. Not to mention the fact she wasn't picked by that damn panda."

Tachi and Naginata had it in for Saotome Genma. Ever since Ranma raised them on the horror story that was his early childhood courtesy of Genma, they hated the man. It didn't help that the cat phobia was entirely his doing.

So finding a single female that passed Naginata's test (Ranma had her administer it for two reasons: One, he was sick and tired of fighting his way out of them, and Two, it was good training since half of his opponents were much, much weaker than he was) was shocking.

"What's your opinion of her?"

"A bit weak, but that can be blamed on the curse and lack of training outside the chakra these people use. At least you got to those two in time to keep them from focusing on it too much later," said Naginata.

"I'm still trying to work out an arrangement with Rein to purge her mark."

"That reminds me, I got a scroll as well, though it was from a different clan."

"Which one?"

"Wind Riders."

"Lucky! Still, phoenixes aren't nearly that bad. They have a decent sense of humor at least."

"I like dragons."

"You get a spare scroll too?"

"They said that I could allow the Toad Summoner's child sign it and one up Gamabunta so long as no one else did untested. Apparently his father impressed them with some jutsu he made but was never completed and he was a wind element."

"Toad Summoner?"

"Minato Namikaze. His son is said to have inherited his hair color instead of the mother's, even though he took his mother's clan name to hide him from his father's enemies."

"Wait a...I think I know who you're talking about, though we aren't allowed to say anything until he reaches Chunin."

"What of the Cursed boy father?"

"Sasuke? I have a different scroll for him to sign. The only reason he decided against becoming a kin-slayer is because of my reinterpretation of making Itachi pay. No way will the Phoenixes allow him to sign when according to Kakashi he's a lightning element."

"Has he managed to pass your test in order to earn a Phoenix Pill?"

"He has until the second phase before he has to wait a month."

* * *

Tsuki was twitching. Damn Kakashi and his loli fetish. It was bad enough the man was lazy as hell, but add to it his obsession with the past and his dead team...

She was past the point of annoyed and onto pissed off. He had a week before the first exam started, and she had yet to hit the second tomoe. Even if she did learn her element before Naruto, she couldn't really do anything with it.

Kakashi refused to teach her ninjutsu, his genjutsu was crappy, and she knew more about taijutsu than he did.

The result? Tsuki didn't bother to show up train with him anymore and instead went to see Kurenai and read from the clan library. She was almost to her second tomoe now, the first being taijutsu. The second one was genjutsu, since her ninjutsu library was rather poor because Ranma preferred to train the body first before moving onto what Naginata called cheating.

The only reason Ranma didn't discourage chakra outright was because it was both a mental and physical balance. Which meant that Shinobi as a rule had to know hand to hand whether they liked it or not.

Hell, out of the entire village Ranma only respected a handful of people.

Naruto (_for all the shit he had to put up with before it became known that he had a box full of cursed powders and didn't have any qualms using them on others like Ibiki_), Sarutobi Hiruzen (_he was still sane after leading a ninja village full of insane people for crying out loud_), Might Gai (_only person known to match him blow for blow before using gates_), Rock Lee (_the kid was determined to be a shinobi even without chakra, and took to KI like Naruto to Ramen_), Anko (_she amused him. Enough said_), and Hinata (_who put up with her father until she kicked his ass so badly the Hyuga elders still flinched if she so much as looked in their direction in a bad mood_).

Sasuke was on his way to earning his respect, and would have it if he decided to humiliate Itachi instead of killing him the next time he saw the weasel.

Ranma learned through Tsuki that the Sharingan couldn't detect Jusenkyo powder mixed in water. He tested that when he poured one into an innocuous water balloon for her to use on Kakashi.

The lazy pervert never did take her threat seriously, and because of the heat wave didn't bother to dodge a water balloon. Though that may have been because she had a bag full of the things and had made doubly sure to hand Kakashi the one that didn't have the laced balloon in it.

The result? There was now a silver-haired cat with one dark eye and one red running around the village. If Sasuke or Naruto ever got their hands on Tora after Ranma filled that mission request for an assassination mission on that damn cat, then Kakashi was screwed sideways.

Tsuki did _not_ like the fact that Kakashi kept hitting her with water jutsu just to see her with a wet shirt. Yet another reason why she quit going to those training sessions.


	7. Chapter 7

Naginata cornered Naruto after training, though he was in his female form.

"What do you need, Nagi-nee-chan?"

Naginata liked the blond for a few reasons. One, he called her nee-chan despite being a few months younger than she was. Two, he never complained when she beat the snot out of him and instead asked for help when needed. And three, because he fully expected her to be better than him and had no problems with strong women.

Besides, she liked foxes.

"Dad told me that you happen to be a Wind element and I was wondering if you wanted to sign a summoning scroll? I already got permission from the clan in question but it's up to you."

"Are they anything like Ranma-sensei's birds? The ones that cuss him out if they get wet?" asked Naruko.

"They're the wind variants. Plus having you sign it before you run into a certain sage is their way of one-upping the toads."

"COOL! Where do I sign?" said Naruko, practically bouncing.

Naginata pulled out the scroll, and showed him what the dragons had told her about the chakra-version. They would need help finding someone who knew how to use the hand signs, but until then Naruko could learn from Naginata.

"U-zu-ma-ki Na-ru-to..." Naruto spelled out carefully. Ranma had helped him a lot with his kanji.

"Now all we need is someone who knows the signs."

"Which ones?" asked Anko, who had come to invite Naginata on a girl's night out.

"Summoning. One of the clans I ran into on the way here asked if I could get the child of the last Toad Summoner to sign the contract before a certain sage got to him first. Apparently they wanted to one-up Gamabunta as a joke."

"Jiraiya's kid?" asked Anko incredulously.

"Not him, the one _after_ him. Though Jiraiya might be the sage they keep talking about."

"But the only known summoner to use toads was... NO WAY. You're his kid?!" said Anko in shock.

"Dad said he wasn't supposed to talk about it till Naruto was a chunin. Hokage's orders."

"That's just bullshit. If anyone deserves to know his own parents, it's Naruto! All the hell the villagers have given him, and his parents were _them_? They don't even deserve to kiss the dirt under his feet after the way they treated him!" said Anko.

"Not my problem. So what are the hand signs he needs? I only know how to use the one based on KI."

Anko shook her head, and showed Naruto how to do the hand signs. After they learned chakra control from Kurenai, Ranma incorporated it into their daily training. They were now as proficient at water walking as a Mist nin, often doing it instinctively.

"Now, since I know for a fact you have a tendency to overpower jutsu outside of the shadow clones, I want you to water walk for thirty minutes before you even think of trying to summon. Got it?" she said ominously. She was highly curious what scroll Nagi-chan had Naruto sign. Not toads, snakes, monkeys, slugs, phoenix (she had told Anko that hers were similar to the birds, but in a different element), or dogs. And definitely not any form of cat since A) Ranma hated them and by proxy so did the genin, and B) Naginata had an allergy to them.

Once Naruto came back, no longer in his henge, he went through the summoning hand signs, only for Anko to stop him.

"You got three of them wrong. Do it again, but this time slowly."

"We should probably move into the forest as well. No sense in alarming the shinobi...besides, I really don't want to explain why I happen to have this particular clan."

"Sure."

Five times Naruto tried to put the signs together, only for Anko to stop and correct him. Finally, when he had it down exactly, she let him channel chakra. But not before he had to water walk since it had taken him an hour before Anko let him do that much.

"Summoning Jutsu!" said Naruto, giddy with excitement.

He was so excited he accidentally channeled too much and brought out what appeared to be a boss summon.

Naginata was impressed. It took her a full year into her training with the summons before she could bring _him_ out.

"Not bad for a runt. Bringing out Seiryuu-san is quite an accomplishment."

"NO FREAKING WAY! YOU GAVE HIM THE SUMMONING SCROLL TO THE DRAGON CLAN?!"shrieked Anko in shock.

"Among the Summon clans they are called the Wind Riders."

Anko would have fainted from sheer shock if she were a normal woman. Instead she gaped openly.

"_**Hmm? Manda's hatchling. He really isn't pleased being stuck with Orochimaru you know. He complains repeatedly how that fool gives his kin a bad name and how he wishes that you would summon him more often,"**_ said Seiryuu.

"Manda hates Orochimaru?" she said in shock.

"_**Something about taking the whole snake theme a little too far for his tastes. He mentioned if you summoned him a bit more he would hand over the contract to you just to piss off Orochimaru."**_

"Thanks for the heads up. Next time I go on a mission I'll be sure to bring him out."

"_**If I were you I'd just throw some of your torture victims his way. He doesn't care where you get his 'sacrifices', so long as someone pays up."**_

"Make clean up a hell of a lot easier..." muttered Anko. She needed to sit down before she passed out. She had a lot to take in today.

"_**Now, as for the little fox-child. Don't look so surprised, Gamabunta is a bit of an idiot when drunk on his own sake. I can see your father in you, but it is clear you inherited your personality mostly from the mother."**_

"You know my parents?"

"_**Minato Namikaze was one of the few humans we would be willing to work with, if that damn toad sage hadn't gotten to him first and we had another summoner. As it is, I can now rub it in Gamabunta's face that I got to you first. And Kushina...we always had a laugh watching her."**_

As Seiryuu settled in, Naruto listened with rapt attention to the tales of his parents. Apparently the summon clans liked to travel and chat with others when not being called for battle. Seiryuu was friends with the Toads, Snakes, pretty much anything reptilian. Suzaku, the Phoenix Boss, was friends with any summon that used fire a lot. Which included foxes, apparently.

When Seiryuu left, he gave Naruto permission to bring out his smaller cousins, even if it was just to chat.

* * *

Jiraiya was about to spy on some nice ladies in Suna when the toad was abruptly summoned back. He tried to bring out another, only to find he was blocked for some reason.

It wasn't until the next day that he found out why.

Gamakichi, one of Gamabunta's sons, told the sage what was going on.

"_**Dad's pissed because Seiryuu-sama got to your **_**godson****_ first."_**

"What?"

"_**Seiryuu-sama? The Boss summon of the Dragon clan summons? He just registered one Naruto Uzumaki as the new chakra-summoner yesterday afternoon, and Dad is really pissed. He also said that next time you tried to bring him out you are a dead man for not taking your responsibility to your godson more seriously."**_

"Where the hell did he get his hands on the Dragon Summoning scroll?!"

"_**He didn't. However their KI summoner happened to be in the area and let him sign the chakra version with the clan's permission."**_

Jiraiya knew what this meant. Next time he needed Gamabunta for anything he was screwed.

Perhaps a trip to Konoha before the third exam was required...

* * *

It was the big day. Tsuki had finally gotten her second tomoe and earned a phoenix pill from Ranma (turned out the Phoenix clan made them in exchange for some other products with the Amazons) and took the first hot bath in over three weeks.

"Now what have I said about the Sharingan?" asked Ranma.

"No copying other jutsu unless it's beyond my current skill level or I can react properly to the image it gives my brain."

"And?"

"No genjutsu unless it's an enemy or it-which-shall-die-painfully," Sasuke repeated. Ranma had been highly unimpressed with the Sharingan once he learned what it actually did. Stealing hard earned techniques simply by looking at them? No way in hell was his student taking a short cut.

He ever caught Sasuke using his new eyes to steal techniques that he could easily learn with a little hard work, he was kicking the kid's ass so fast that any progeny he had would be feeling it. And he wouldn't help him get the Lightning Summon scroll from the Noble clans. All the Noble Element clans were interconnected, it was just a matter of finding one.

Or, in the case of Ranma and Naginata, be approached by a human representative and taken there. The Noble clans tolerated ninja, who used chakra as a cheat to get stronger, but they admired true martial artists who got that strong the hard way...through pure hard work and hellish training. Tachi, Ranma's son, had his own summoning contract with the Lightning tribe.

"Now, I've done all I can to prepare you two and Haku for this chunin exam. I overheard the first bit is a paper test, but you didn't hear it from me."

"Got it."

"So, I want you to use that brain of yours to help Naruto out."

"I'll do my best, but don't expect much."

"Hey, if I could get though high school after missing nearly a year of it, then Naruto should have no trouble with an exam."

"Coincidentally...could I got into the exam as Tsuki? The last thing I want is to deal with that damn fan club."

"Not my problem. Keep an eye on that red head you ran into earlier, okay?"

"See you after the test."

"Remember, no one said you had to go through the damn school to get to the third floor! I imagine there are people who got there early, so look for the odd symbols!" yelled Ranma.

Sasuke flashed him a grin.

* * *

"So we're going to skip the school and head straight to the third floor?" asked Naruto.

"Yup. Nagi-chan, we'll leave the window open so you can jump in," said Sasuke. He had two containers on him, one hot and one cold. Half of either would work on his curse.

Haku, Tsuki and Naruko walked up the wall, found the correct window with a bunch of different headbands, and waited a few moments for Naginata to jump into the room.

Once the genin from the other villages ascertained that they weren't a threat, they ignored the four. Though that was after Naginata leveled a contemptuous look in their direction.

"Tsuki-san! Naruko-chan! Haku-san!" said Hinata, waving at them.

"Hinata-chan!" squealed Naginata. Hinata was her first female friend since leaving the Amazon village, with Tenten being the second. The two got along like fire after Hinata's Jyuken skills impressed Naginata, and Tenten shared a similar love of weapons that she did.

Shino and Kiba winced. Naginata had been particularly unpleasant to deal with since she was raised to believe men were weak...with the exception of her father of course. Fortunately she backed off because Hinata spoke in their favor. But that was after Kiba made the mistake of hitting on her before Hinata explained who she was.

The bruise Naginata left on the dog boy had finally healed up. His sister and mother had laughed themselves sick when they heard who did it.

Tsuki winced when she saw Ino, who was looking around for Sasuke to glomp. Fortunately they had a convenient lie for why she was taking the exam and he wasn't.

"If you're looking for Sasuke, don't bother. He's still training his newly awakened Sharingan and decided not to come," she told the girl.

Ino looked disappointed, then cheered herself up with the knowledge that Sasuke was still cooler than any other boy her age. Tsuki winced, and Shikamaru shared a pained look with her.

Out of the rookie twelve, only the girls were unaware that Tsuki was in fact Sasuke in cursed form.

(Sakura's team passed by the skin of their teeth, and it was highly unlikely that most of them would make chunin. On the plus side, Sakura was currently interning at the hospital when her teacher noted she was adept at medical jutsu. She was still a damn harpy though.)

"So who's the new girl?" demanded Ino.

"Saotome Naginata," said Nagi-chan before adding to that since clearly most of the rookies knew her father, "Yes I am related to Ranma Saotome. He's my father."

"Why Naginata?" asked Sakura, who had finally come in with her team.

"It was either name me after a weapon or let my mother name me after some form of feminine product. Most of the warriors in my village were named after hygiene and make up products. My own mother is named Shampoo for kami's sake."

Ino and Sakura winced. Yeah, it was better to be named after a weapon used to kill than after something you used to clean your hair or make yourself a little pretty.

"So why are you here? I can only assume you're not a ninja," said Shikamaru.

Tsuki chuckled evilly.

"Hokage-sama was too stoned to realize he signed the permission slip for her to join in the exam despite not being raised and trained her. By the time he came to his senses it was already too late and the paperwork had been filed," Tsuki gleefully informed them.

Shikamaru gave her a speculative look.

"You play shogi?"

"A little. Not very well, mind you, but enough to beat Dad."

"Mind playing a game sometime?"

Naginata gave him a suspicious look, but remembered what her father said about the clans here. Judging by his demeanor his only intention was having someone new to play with, not courtship. She was definitely the definition of 'troublesome woman' and thereby not what he wanted to date. Nara men were notoriously lazy.

"I could probably brush up on my game," she said finally. Shikamaru grinned. She looked at Chouji and didn't show a hint of disgust at the fact he was so big or the food he was eating.

The rather chubby boy tensed at her gaze.

"You any good at fighting?"

"I'm still trying to earn my armor and raise my chakra controls, but I'm decent at my clan's techniques," he admitted.

"You look like you would be fun to spar against," she said. Kiba winced.

Naginata's idea of a spar was less of a brawl and more of an ass kicking.

Chouji watched her reactions to him before he grinned back. Clearly she didn't think that just because he was big it meant he couldn't fight.

Seeing the looks the other rookies gave her, she told them that she had come looking for her father.

"Dad left the village seven years ago as per the agreement he made with the elders. Grandma Cologne said I could follow him once I passed a certain test of hers, and it took me a while but I did it. In exchange I had to bring new blood back to the village along with any new fighting techniques. Having dad around the village showed them that they needed to add to the collection."

"So what sort of village did you live in?" asked Ino, the gossip queen.

"An Amazon one," said Naginata, not about to explain her village.

"Amazon, as in a village where the women reign supreme and the only way to get married is to be beaten in combat. Outsiders are welcome but not encouraged. Females who beat the champion during contests are scheduled to be executed or the one who was beaten is taken to a cursed training ground as punishment for their weakness. Males, on the other hand, are immediately engaged to the female whether they like it or not in order to add to the collective gene pool. Unless, of course, they are already promised to another in which case the only way to solve it is through the _Heaven and Earth_ solution where the second female is considered an honorary Amazon and trained in their ways. Men in the village have to beat the female in order to even be considered as a husband," said Tsuki.

Naginata's eyes were wide.

"How in the hell did you know all that?"

"Found a book in my house. I have no idea where it came from or why it was there, when as far as I am aware my clan has never been to China."

Ino's eyes were wide.

"You come from a village of warrior women? What's it like?" she said eagerly. That was a village she could get behind!

While Naginata gave her the basic run down (mostly because she still wanted to know where the hell Sasuke found a book on her village's laws) Naruto chatted with the others. Ever since Hinata snapped at Hiashi, she had dropped the stutter entirely. Though that could also be because Anko had gotten her hooks into her.

Where the sweet and innocent Hinata had been was now a total bitch who was ready to take any comers. Anko had been so proud and Kurenai had hit the liquor in order to come to terms with the change.

All of the gossiping stopped when Ibiki and the others finally showed up.


	8. Chapter 8

Ibiki shot Naruto a sour look, mostly due to the curse he got saddled with. Interrogators are not supposed to be small and fluffy damn it! Though he did want to know how the hell Saotome got his daughter into the exam when she wasn't a ninja.

"You there! Saotome! I catch you trying anything funny and I kick you out, understand?"

Naginata glared right back. She said something rather rude back in Chinese. If her grandmother heard her use such words she would have been beaten black and blue.

(_A/N: The main reason why Naginata doesn't really talk to her mother is because of her allergies to cat hair, which due to the fact her mother is cursed to _become_ a cat means that it's all over her clothes. As a result, her grandmother Cologne had to train her since Naginata had sneezing fits every time her mother came close. This, combined with her father's fear of the animal, means she can't stand felines.)_

Ibiki glared at her.

"Nagi-chan, don't tease the poor thing. You know he has trouble with...that..." snickered Naruto.

"_He's the one you curse accidentally?"_ she asked in Chinese.

"_Yup."_

Naginata grinned evilly.

"Tsuki, may I borrow the second thermos?"

"You wouldn't dare..." snarled Ibiki.

"Small and Furry..." grinned Naginata.

Behind Ibiki, a few chunin snickered evilly. Ibiki glared at them.

"Not one word...or you're cleaning up after one of Ranma's cat induced frenzies..." he growled.

"Try anything funny to Nagi-chan and we'll completely ruin your reputation," Tsuki shot back. Naruto nodded emphatically. Haku started to move away from them lest they really piss off the head Interrogator Morino Ibiki.

(He had met the man once, when they first came to Konoha. He had no desire to antagonize the man.)

Ibiki barked out what they were supposed to do and handed out the papers. Ever since that damn Uzumaki hit him with a curse-laced water balloon, his life had been hell. Mostly because the second Anko learned about the accident she insisted on hitting him with water jutsu whenever she could. The worst part was that he had become a bit of a joke within the ANBU.

The only reason Ibiki didn't drag the kid in on some trumped-up charge as payback was because Naruto apparently realized what he did and admitted it was a complete accident.

The prank he played on the worst offenders did make most of his fury die down a bit. Even Anko finally stopped the jokes, though she still hit him with water balloons occasionally for a quick laugh.

At least he was vindicated when he heard what happened to Kakashi for being a perverted fool. But really, he deserved it after Tsuki-chan gave him prior warning that she would curse him. It was his own damn fault for not dodging that balloon when she wasn't even trying to hide the fact she was throwing it.

Naruto sat next to Hinata and the Suna girl from earlier. Temari, if he remembered right. Ibiki gave out the rules with gritted teeth. Thanks to the Saotome girl, his reputation as a cold-hearted bastard was on the line.

At least once this mess was over he could interrogate her about her loyalty and plans in Konoha. Only ninja were allowed in the chunin exams...or outside contractors who wanted to raise their rank in the BINGO books. It was rare, but it did happen. And the chunin exams were the best place to do it in a relatively safe environment if you knew what you were doing and didn't cause trouble.

Naginata had a front row seat, thanks to some subtle maneuvers from Ibiki. He wanted a chance to observe the girl without having to look across the rows to do it.

Naruto delivered his speech, calming down the nerves of 16 teams and one independent contractor. Ibiki was less than amused when Anko came in and screwed up his usual speech after the first half was finished.

She grinned at Naginata, who smirked back. The two had hit it off after Nagi-chan tested Anko.

"Alright Maggots! Meet me at Area 44 in an hour or you'll be sorry!" she smirked.

* * *

"How did it go?"

"Easy pass. Though I may have ticked off the scarred fool."

"Ha! Serves him right for not dodging Naruto's balloon when it's known he has water activated powders in his arsenal! By the way, I learned a fun fact recently about explosive seals."

"What?"

"KI sets them off prematurely."

Naginata's grin widened to the point it would give people nightmares. Unfortunately it was Ranma who gave his children a love of wanton destruction in the name of training/revenge/for the hell of it.

As such it wouldn't be until _after_ the exams that Naginata would be banned from learning seals, buying seals, or anything explosive related.

In other news, the Fire Country Tigers near the Forest of Death recently relocated to the less plentiful but infinitely less dangerous for anything cat related Bog of Despair. Naruto was still laughing his ass off about it. But nowhere near as hard as Ranma was when he found out Sasuke had a ton of seal books in his clan library that even Jiraiya didn't have copies of.

The ominous cackling of the martial artist sent shivers down Anko's back...and not the terrified ones either.

* * *

Naginata found Team 4 ten minutes into the forest.

"Alright girls/men. Here's the deal. We both need to pass this stupid thing and the idiots in charge literally put us in our backyard. The Fire Country Tigers are essentially gone from this area after all the times I missed with my fireballs and Naruto's furry friend hitting them with Killing Intent...plus having to actually deal with Gai's stupid Genjutsu. The point is, there is no excuse for us to fail this! Plus dad lent me a _ton_ of explosive tags we can prematurely detonate if people piss us off."

"Did she just say what I think she said?" asked Tsuki.

"Wanton destruction in the name of passing?" said Naruto.

Haku facepalmed. Of all the teams he ended up with, it had to be the insanely cheerful and just barely acceptable one. Zabuza on a drinking binge was more stable than them.

On the other hand, he had yet to run into a single missing nin capable of actually _defeating _them. There is a reason why all the really powerful ninja are clinically insane.

Suddenly Naginata paused and looked over Tsuki's shoulder.

"Is that a snake?"

"Yup."

"That doesn't look like a standard Forest snake. In fact it looks more like a summons, and Anko has been banned from setting them loose in here during the exams. She bitched about that for hours!"

"...Isn't the only other snake summon contractor Orochimaru of the Sannin, also a known pedophile with a thing for young boys?" said Haku. It was sad that a gender-confused boy with a penchant for wearing female clothes was the voice of reason on the team.

Zabuza laughed for hours when he found that bit out...right up until Haku sent ice senbon into his balls. Then he cussed out his surrogate son/apprentice.

Naginata walked up to the snake annoyed.

"Alright scales. Is that sorry excuse for a ninja in this forest?" she demanded.

Tsuki and Haku blinked when the snake paused in its attempt to eat her to sniff her scent before rearing back.

"_Sorry Summoner. I didn't realize that you were the Dragon Mistress."_

"It's alright. Now is Orochimaru in here or not?"

"_Yes. He wants us to retrieve the Uchiha boy."_

"...He wants you to retrieve Itachi? Seriously?"

The snake blinked.

"_No, he said he wanted to capture or convert Sasuke Uchiha."_

Tsuki shivered before she realized something.

"Oh my kami...he has no idea I was cursed by the village idiot does he?" she said amused.

"Nope."

Tsuki burst out laughing. This was too funny! The Snake Sannin didn't know about the cursed powders...or the fact that they could make his life hell by throwing him to Jiraiya as a _girl_.

"Tell Manda not to let any of his people out in Konoha. This is dragon turf now, and unless Anko is the one summoning, they shouldn't come out. Otherwise I make no promises about your own safety."

"_...And yet you're still nicer than Orochimaru. I'll let the others know your warning."_

The snake vanished with a poof. If there was one thing they didn't want, it was a fight with the Wind Riders.

Why? Occasionally the snakes were apprenticed to the dragons and gained their abilities. In fact it was the dragon clan who showed snakes how to access Sage Mode in the first place. Since they didn't like Orochimaru, he never got more than the bare bones of the lessons.

* * *

_Meanwhile outside the forest..._

Ibiki was trying to get drunk. Very drunk. Beside him was Kakashi, Asuma, and Zabuza.

"Ya know I've been meaning to ask...what the hell did blondie hit you with anyway?" asked Zabuza.

Ibiki growled. Coming from him it sounded like a bear. The sake bottle started to develop cracks but had yet to break or spill.

"I'm not talking about it dammit. It's bad enough he got me with one by complete accident."

Behind him someone snickered. Then he tossed something to land in front of Ibiki before running like mad cackling.

Zabuza didn't get the significance of the bananas.

"Did he miss?" he asked. After all, Asuma was from a clan that was known for the Monkey-Fist and their monkey summons.

Ibiki's growling grew louder. Asuma wisely didn't say anything, though he was one of the few outside the T and I who knew what Ibiki turned into.

"Oh please, it can't be any worse than what Tsuki turned me into. Hell, they said once they kill Tora they'll put me under a pressure point and give me to the Fire Daimyo's Wife as an apology for 'accidentally' killing her cat!" said a very inebriated Kakashi.

Zabuza grinned under his mask...and used a minor water jutsu to dump water on Ibiki. He gaped when he found out what the torture specialist turned into.

"He turns into a chimp?"

Asuma coughed, hiding a laugh.

"Actually he's a Capuchin Monkey. In the outside they're sometimes trained as helper monkeys for the disabled."

It was Zabuza who had to make the reference.

"'We named the monkey Jack.'" he said laughing.

That was all it took, and Ibiki was on him.

"GET HIM OFF ME! GET HIM OFF ME!"

Asuma took pity on him when Ibiki started to sling his own...well, it's something monkeys like to sling around for fun... and poured hot water on Ibiki.

The result? Ibiki was strangling Zabuza pissed off.

"DIE!"

Kakashi fell off the stool drunk off his ass.

* * *

"Does anyone else get the feeling that something hilarious has just happened and we aren't there to see it?" asked Naruto.

"Yes," said Tsuki promptly.

"What do you think it was?" asked Haku.

"My guess? Someone finally made that _Pirates of the Caribbean_ reference to Ibiki to his face and he started slinging crap everywhere. I bet on Zabuza!" said Naruto.

"Foreigner," said Tsuki.

"...Anko," said Naginata.

"I'm with Naruto on this one. Only Zabuza would be idiot enough to make that reference in front of Ibiki after learning of his...furry...form," said Haku.

"Name your amounts!" Naruto said.

"Two Jusenkyo powders," said Tsuki. She had a few people she wanted to curse and needed them...and Ranma refused to give her a box until he believed that the Uchiha kid wouldn't go off the deep end and join someone just because they promised power.

"Two water jutsu scrolls," said Haku.

"Two weapons."

"Two wind scrolls!" said Naruto eagerly.

"How do we know who won?" asked Haku.

Naginata snapped her fingers.

"Naruto, time to test your summoning powers. Send one of the wyverns to see if anyone quoted that movie to Ibiki."

"What are Wyverns?" asked Tsuki.

"Lesser dragons that aren't immortal and can only breath fire through jutsu. Sometimes they get elevated to dragon, but that's really rare. The dragon clan uses them as scouts and messengers."

Naruto slowly went through the signs, and carefully channeled just enough chakra for a single clone.

"Summoning Jutsu: Dragon!" said Naruto.

"**Yo. What you need delivered?"**

"Well done Naruto! You got it right on the first try!" said Naginata patting his head of spikes. Naruto tried not to purr like a fox.

"We need to have a bet confirmed. Someone in the village just mentioned the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ movie to the head torture specialist in the village. We want to know who."

"**Why would that movie bother him?"**

"I accidentally cursed him to become a monkey like the one in the movie," said Naruto.

The wyvern chuckled.

"**I'll be back in a bit. I'll just follow Fox-boy's scent to find ya,"**said the wyvern.

An hour later he returned with the news.

"**Man name Zabuza Momochi used a minor rain jutsu on him and then quoted it. What's my payment?"** asked the wyvern.

"I'll cook you dinner once we get out," said Naginata.

"**Payment to be confirmed later. See ya!"**

A moment later Haku spoke.

"I wasn't aware that summons required a payment outside chakra."

"Normal summons don't. Noble summons, on the other hand, get offended if you don't give something back. I heard Manda, the Boss of the Snake summons, is almost ready to become a dragon. He just has to get Orochimaru off the Snake summons scroll first."

* * *

Naginata spotted a team and beat them up. The poor Konoha fools didn't stand a chance.

"Che. Heaven. I need Earth. Tsuki, this is yours."

Tsuki snatched it out of the air like a bird. They were about to move on when a sudden gust of wind blew all but Haku and Tsuki away.

"What the hell!?" snarled Naginata.

"Nagi-nee! HELP!"

Naruto was stuck in some vines and they were wrapped in a way that he couldn't get to his kunai. She jumped down and drew her naginata. In a few short strikes, the vines came apart in pieces.

"Ten ryo says Orochimaru is behind this," she growled.

"No bet. Hold on while I unseal the camera. I wanna get his face when he find out that the Uchiha he is after is currently female," grinned Naruto. Naginata cackled in response.

* * *

Orochimaru sneered at the baby genin. The ice child was interesting, but he only had enough curse ink for one today. He was about to mark the Uchiha boy when he noticed something...off.

Haku had hit Sasuke with a water jutsu by accident, and now all his clothes were damp and fit in all the right places. In fact it showed off the already well-rounded curves on his...

Wait, what?

Orochimaru did a double take. His eyes confirmed what he had seen thanks to the water jutsu. They bulged a bit in shock.

"You're a girl?!"

"At the moment. Thank kami for pressure points," snarked 'Sasuke'.

Suddenly 'Sasuke' turned to a point above him.

"You get all that dumbass?" 'he' asked.

"Yup! Anko's gonna be one happy girl when she sees this!" cackled Naruto.

Orochimaru snarled.

"I can at least mark the ice boy!" he growled.

Right up until the point where said 'ice boy' surrounded him in impenetrable mirrors and nearly skewered him with senbon.

Then the odd Foreign girl came in and kicked his ass. Literally. Her techniques were things he had never encountered before. Her taijutsu more effective and painful than a certain Green beast.

And that was before she brought her sword that her grandmother gave her for passing the final test and finally being allowed out.

In short, Orochimaru got his ass kicked soundly by a bunch of thirteen and fifteen year-old genin. Genin who had been trained since graduating and a little before on how to beat opponents in humiliating ways.

Needless to say Orochimaru was_ not_ pleased.


	9. Chapter 9

Ranma's first encounter with the Snake Sannin goes back well before he came to Konoha and met Anko for the first time by accident due to a Neko-ken induced panic.

Orochimaru had been fascinated by his curse form...and to Ranma's intense discomfort, his male form. It didn't take him long to peg the man as gay with a taste for teens. It also didn't help that after the fight with Saffron his body seemed locked at age nineteen, even though now he was well into his thirties.

For some reason several of those who were in that fight had been locked in to their ages at the time, some were lucky to escape Saffron's final revenge like Akane.

Finding out she would age and he wouldn't had been the last straw and she broke the engagement. Soun might have better luck with Kasumi and Tofu's kid inheriting the dojo, since Nabiki didn't care a bit for it, Kasumi had her own family, and Akane seemed determined to die an old shrew.

But back to his meeting with Orochimaru.

He had nothing against the man personally, but something about his attitude rubbed him the wrong way. He reminded him of his father Genma, and not in a good way. This was a man who didn't care about the consequences of his actions or the fact he was setting a child who had no say in the world for a life of hell.

As such he held his opinion of the man until he could properly understand his motives.

When he first met Anko and learned she had been the man's apprentice, he had been appalled when he heard about the experiments.

Ranma was a big fan of kids. He was a lot easier on his students than he was with people over the age of fifteen. He didn't coddle them, but he was supportive and caring. If they were too injured to fight, he didn't push them.

It had come as a rather large shock to the Amazon females (namely Cologne and Shampoo) to learn Ranma was a great dad. It came with having a very good example of what _never_ to do. He would often take Naginata and Tachi fishing or hunting for days, and they would come back with smiles.

And when he first took in Naruto, the boy had been so starved for attention it was painful. So Ranma took him in, taught him one day at a time and trained him the way he had been trained.

But never the Neko-ken. That technique would die with him. He had already tracked down all records of it and destroyed them with permission from the Amazons. The method was appalling and the technique too unstable.

And Naruto _thrived_ on his attention. His grades shot up like a rocket, his hand-to-hand was good enough to keep up with Lee without his weights and the first gate opened. He even dabbled in fuinjutsu, and it turned out he was a natural.

And once Naruto properly sat down and talked to the fox, his intelligence shot up and his control became easier. The fox had mentioned someone coming in and shredding the boy's mind when he was very young, just barely old enough for the Academy in fact, and Ranma took him inside his mind to repair the damage.

And then there was Sasuke/Tsuki. The boy had never really interested him until he learned how badly the boy had been damaged in his mind.

It had taken him a full year of beat downs, explanations and actually _listening_ to the boy's problems to dislodge the stick that had been shoved up his ass.

Surprisingly, the curse actually helped more than hurt the boy. Dealing with being a girl got his ego to drop down to manageable levels and having an adult treat him like a normal kid had healed the damage Fugaku had caused by all that Uchiha honor bull.

Now Sasuke was more at ease with himself and while he had honor, it wasn't the clan's honor, but his. He had pride, but it was pride in himself, something his birth father had never tried to foster in him.

Then there was Hinata.

Hinata had little to no self confidence because of Hiashi taking out his frustrations with the clan on her. (Kurenai had found it hilarious the way his daughter kicked his ass, but had properly explained the real situation to Ranma after the beat down.) Her cousin and younger sister didn't make it any better because they viewed her as weak.

Now she could walk with her head held high and her stutter was gone.

Of course that wasn't nearly as funny as what Ranma did to Neji...

_Flashback..._

"Hinata-sama and Naruto-san are fated to be losers," said Neji tonelessly.

Ranma's eyebrow twitched.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because they have always been losers. Naruto could barely make a clone in the Academy and Hinata-sama has never even beaten her own sister," replied Neji.

"And what would you do if I said Naruto has the most potential to be an S rank and Hinata could easily be an A rank?" he asked.

"I would say you have been smoking the same herbs that you grow," said Neji.

"And I would say that you have only one chance to avoid being cursed by your own cousin," said Ranma.

Neji winced. He had heard about the cursed powders.

"I heard a rumor that the original powders were only temporary," said Neji.

"These weren't made by the Amazons. They were made by the summon clans. In other words, they have all the powers of the original spring water. Apparently the Amazons were too weak to actually recreate the cursed springs entirely," said Ranma.

(_There. I hope you like the reasoning as to why the powders are permanent and not temporary!_)

Neji winced again. He didn't want to end up with a curse, whether it was fated or not.

"Tell you what. Hinata will challenge you after a month of training with me and you'll have the option of fighting her or being cursed. Deal?"

"Deal."

Of course Neji was quick to rethink antagonizing Hinata after the ass kicking of Hiashi.

When Ranma mentioned it again, he started to back away from the man, which caused Ranma to laugh. _Weakness,_ Ranma once said to Naruto, _only remained that way if you let it_.

_Flashback End_

On the other hand, Ranma had little to no experience in dating like a normal person. He fully blamed this on his upbringing. Aside from Shampoo, he had never actually had any relations with females. At least no intimate ones.

Thankfully the only female he was ever in constant contact with was Anko, and she had skewed ideas about what dates consisted of herself.

As it was, ever since Naginata approved Anko to date her father, she started a bet with the ANBU and Ibiki on who would jump who first.

The odds were pretty damn high on Anko jumping him first.

Only Naginata knew that would change in a heartbeat if her father learned of the bet.

* * *

Ranma was bringing Anko another load of dango when they found the bodies. He had also seen the wyvern flying out earlier and assumed Naginata was training Naruto again.

Anko and Ranma ran into the Forest, both running along familiar trees. This was one of their favorite hang outs, and it didn't hurt that this was where he first met her in the throws of a Neko-Ken panic attack.

Anko was the one to find Orochimaru...who was entirely unprepared for the ass kicking that followed. Ranma, when he learned how badly Orochimaru had screwed up his best friend, decided to react the same way he did around his own father Genma.

But Orochimaru wasn't nearly as well trained as Genma was, nor did he have the same taijutsu affinity.

The result? Orochimaru got his ass kicked black and blue because he relied more on jutsu than actual physical training.

Anko, when she recovered from the curse seal, bust a gut laughing her ass off at the pictures Ranma so thoughtfully took of Orochi all swollen up from bruises.

The ANBU in the tower inside the forest still refused to speak of the noises they heard from that room, though quite a few were exchanging ryo later.

(Naginata eventually got her cut, which was roughly the same amount as an High A rank mission pay. In case you were wondering, she had bet on her father jumping Anko. And from the cries they heard in the tower he did.)

* * *

"AAAAAAHHHH! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" was the general outcry.

Naginata, Naruto, and Tsuki were all cackling like madmen while Haku was waiting for the effects of the migraine pills to kick in. It was a miracle he didn't have gray hair yet.

Gaara appeared roughly half an hour in, and they learned that the poor kid was like Naruto only with a really crappy seal.

Fortunately they knew a really good seal master who would be willing to help out in exchange for Ranma not busting him in the hot springs...again...for the third time that month.

Though the look the blond girl was giving the trio as they corrupted Gaara was rather amusing.

"Dear kami... what the hell is wrong with those three? And why are they corrupting Gaara?!" she asked in horror.

"I've learned it's easier to just ignore their insanity and hope it all goes away. In the meantime, aspirin?"

"Thank you. Please tell me they normally aren't like this."

"Oh no, this is just what happens when they are allowed to use explosives without regard to the consequences. Normally they are borderline sane. Well, in between hand-to-hand practice anyway. I never knew a human body could bend in those ways..." said Haku.

The blond looked at her other brother who was staring at the three 'girls' with something akin to lust.

Naginata preferred armor over bras, and Tsuki never wore any because it would lead to some very awkward questions if she suddenly turned back into a guy. And Naruto...well, he had pranked enough people that they would know he was a boy anyway even in girl form.

And all three of the 'girls' were very well developed and had difficulty with breast bands. Haku got over this easily because he viewed them more like siblings which killed any libido. Sasuke/Tsuki had a crush on Naginata, but knew better than to approach the girl directly because of how she was raised. And Hinata was very close to claiming Naruto as hers.

It did not help Hiashi that both Hinata _and_ Hanabi had been taking lessons from Naginata about boys, since she was less awkward to talk to than the older women and wouldn't assume anything like the other girls their age. Hanabi was well aware that Konohamaru, or what Ranma called the 'Chibi Patrol', had a thing for her. However Hanabi was of a similar opinion that Naginata was. If he wanted to be her boyfriend, then he would have to work for it.

Temari and Haku sat down to watch the destruction from one of the higher trees while Kankuro kept half an eye on Gaara and the rest of his attention on the three females.

"Shouldn't we get scrolls from the dead?" asked Temari. She lived with Gaara as a younger brother. Dead bodies no longer bothered her.

"Naruko has been spamming clones. Anything of worth is immediately sealed, and she'll hand us a scroll once they get the destructive urge out of their systems. If not, I have a fool proof way to get their attention," said Haku.

One of the few tricks he had learned when living with Ranma was that there was one easy way to get their attention. It had involved some tricky timing and the agreement of the Hokage, but the end result was that he had a summoning jutsu which would get their attention rather quickly.

He looked up, noted that it was getting dark, and sent a clone to ask if they were almost done. He wasn't suicidal.

* * *

"Are you four done yet?" asked Hakutwo.

"Aw, but we're teaching Gaara-kun the joys of exploding idiots!" pouted Naruko. Gaara actually looked like he was having fun. It was an odd look for him.

"I know, but I would like to sleep on an actual bed before the sun goes down too far," said the clone.

Tsuki pouted next to Naruko. It wasn't often she was allowed to unleash her inner Pyromaniac.

Haku's clone glared at them.

"Either you lot finish this up or I'll unleash that Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named."

As one, the three of them turned to look at her with an evil gleam in their eyes. Team four had been banned from that particular D rank because of Ranma's issues with cats, and Naginata had been banned (since she was an independent the Hokage let her take missions like any other genin) because of her severe allergies. However they had run into the cat in question a few times escaping from other genin, and they hated it with a passion.

Haku wasn't a cat fan either. However he did put up with the furball long enough to put a summoning seal on a collar he had made just for that purpose. It was sewn in between the two layers, so no one would know it was there until it was activated.

Naginata looked at the sky.

"Fine. We'll blow up one last thing and then we'll head to the tower," she said petulantly.

"Deal."

That was all the clone could say before they turned their explosives on him and Haku nearly fell out of the tree. He glared at his team.

"I hate you all."

* * *

Iruka was glaring at them all. So were a good number of ANBU.

The reason was simple really. In an effort to get rid of the competition, Naginata and Naruto had laced the forest with a good number of explosive tags that went off at random intervals. If it wasn't for the fact that he had been summoned through the scrolls, he would be a dead man. They nearly got five ANBU already.

"Naruto, Naginata, Tsuki...when this is over I want you three to go and undo all those exploding tags without setting them all off. Am. I. Clear?" asked Iruka irritably.

"Hai, Iruka-sensei," said Naruto and Tsuki.

(Enter the speech of what the scroll on the wall means...)

* * *

Cat walked up to Naginata with a scroll in her hand.

"What's that?"

"Your cut."

"So he jumped her? Finally!" said Naginata.

Yuugao was glad the mask hid her grin. There was a reason why she liked this girl, and it wasn't because she finally contacted her grandmother for a cure to Hayate's sickness. She reminded her of her younger self. Ironically, while Ranma and Naginata despised cats, they got along great with Yuugao even though her ANBU designation was Cat.

When asked by a bewildered Anko why they didn't have panic attacks, Ranma and Naginata had looked at each other and said that the mask, while cat-like in shape, simply didn't induce their reactions to the accursed species. Apparently it was one of the few things that didn't send them into a murderous frenzy.

As it was, Ranma occasionally went out drinking with them.

"How did you know he would jump her first?"

"Dad may be many things, but he is stuck in a teenaged body because of a curse a certain creep threw on him. Training can only go so far, and since I approved of Anko, he essentially gave himself the all clear to date her. What did you think all those trips in the forest were last month?"

"...Good thing I bet with you then."


End file.
